


Dragonwing

by AlexMcFly31415



Category: Deltarune (Video Game), Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: 1 cup of angst, 2 cups of fluff, F/F, F/M, M/M, a pinch of shippping, mix again, mix and heat on the cannon for one hour, okay a big pinch of shipping, serve with some chocolate cream, then add some gaster
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2020-03-17 17:52:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 54
Words: 49,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18970084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexMcFly31415/pseuds/AlexMcFly31415
Summary: Let me tell you a story about the time I got turned into a dragon. And entered an underground full of monsters. Who just declared war on humans. Stuff happens.





	1. Prologue 1: Introduction And Fluff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that this chapter looks totally random and non-undertale-ish, but read on. The first chapter is just a warm-up before the Undertale's events, so please, make your way through one and a half chapter and it's all gonna make sense. Also sorry for explaining this so late, at this point probably over two hundred people saw the first chapter and thought "Oh, this is not Undertale, he must have misplaced the tags" because I didn't explain anything. It's all gonna fall in place, I promise.

The name’s Cade. Cade the human.

Well… Mostly human.

I’m 15 and I don’t know how to introduce myself properly. Don’t have the best social skills, you know. Um. Anyway.

I used to live in Ebott, Poland. ”Ebott is in Poland?”, you may ask. Yes it is. At least in this universe. I don’t know how it is in all the other Earths that may or may not exist, but here it’s Poland. Shut up and don’t question. Dammit, I’m getting sidetracked again.

I used to live in Ebott. Until some stuff happened. It was a cold and dark night… Nope, can’t do the horror entrance. Anyway, it was afternoon. I got back home from school, took off my coat and spread my wings. ”Wings?” Yeah, that’s the inhuman part. I have dragon wings on my back. Nobody knows about them, except my mom and a little group of people. Speaking of mom, she just noticed me and said:

“Welcome home, dear! I’ve prepared some sushi for dinner. Alice should come around eighteen.”

“Thanks. Can she stay overnight?”

Mom looked at me with a ”don’t bang her” look, and I blushed.

“We’re just FRIENDS, mom! Friends!”

“Okay, okay, alright, okay”, she backed off with a smile, but I didn’t believe her. Well, Alice was the only girl I talked to, and my only friend in general, so I could understand it but still. I was tsundere, mom knew it, and she still kept teasing me.

My mom’s name is Jade and she is actually the best mom I could imagine. She has been taking care of me alone since dad died in an accident and we moved to Ebott about nine years ago. Yes, mom and dad are both human. No, I have no idea where I got my wings from. Mom only knows that’s some bloodline stuff, nothing more than that. It’s not a big deal, except stuffing them under the coat being a huge pain in the ass, and everyone at my school thinking I’m some freak with a cloak always on. Thankfully the school principal is a family friend and he knows about my wings, so Mom managed to set up a play with him, some “My son has a terrible disease which makes him always cold and fragile” thing, so I’m allowed to have a coat at school and I’m blessfully banned from P.E. for the rest of my life. At least I exercise at night. Flying down from the mountain is real fun. Yes, we have a mountain near the city. It’s really convenient for me and there are rumors about it, but… Well, follow the story!

“Cade! Are you home?”, I heard Alice shout after coming in. “Umm, hello Ms. Aunt! Hi Cade!” Cheerful as always.

“Hey,” I replied, “I’ve got good news. You can stay overnight!”

“Excuse me?” Mom interfered, trying to look upset “Did I agree to something like that?”

“You always do!” we both replied, bursting into laughter.

“Well… Since it’s Friday, and your grades are acceptable...” Even more laughter and one smiling mom.

“Take off your coat!” Mom shouted to Alice, as she ran up the stairs.

 

 

“So,” Alice begun, walking into my room, “Have you printed all the parts?”

“Yeah, we can assemble the GG now.” I happen to have a 3D printer, which is a perfectly normal toy for a fifteen year old. I’ve just finished printing all the parts for a rubber band gatling gun, which was a great design since it could be used with one hand and didn’t require any external parts or screws.

“Nice. Wanna do it now?”

“Why not?” I shrugged, and opened the drawer I kept the parts in.

Remember me talking about my social awkwardness? Well, Alice was the one exception from that rule. I would never feel offended in her presence, as long as it was just me and her. All the other kids would mock us when we were sitting together in our weird outfits in the middle of spring.

Did I mention Alice was also mostly human?

She didn’t have wings, but she had fox ears and tail. Yeah, a kitsune ~~girl~~ friend. In her case a cap for the ears was enough, but she had to squeeze her tail under her… I really don’t feel like talking about it.

We finished assembling our rubber band powered machine of doom and I begun the reloading process. It managed to fit 48 deadly bullets in it.

“Want to try it out first?” I asked.

“No, you can do it. I’ve found the project, but you paid for the filament” Alice replied.

I grabbed the gun and looked at my hand. It now looked like a futuristic circle with eight spikes pointing forward, each having six rubber bands locked and loaded. These were the barrels.

I pointed it at the wall, and began repeatedly pressing the trigger. All of the bands began shooting out of the barrels at a rapid rate. In five seconds the gun was out of ammo.

“Cool”, whispered Alice.

“You bet! And that was only rubber bands. I wonder if I can make it shoot ASG…”

“Please don’t. We’d be in jail after three seconds.”

“Ok, I will hold my deadly 3D designing instincts just for you” I said, and she giggled.

“It’s late!” I heard my mom shout. “Go to bath, then sleep! And don’t get too foxy in there!”

“MOM!” Even more laughter from Alice. Mom knew perfectly I liked to sleep with Al, and was okay with that. Alice was so fluffy… Literally. I actually loved her very much. I might be a winged freak, but I at least have a cute fox freak with me.


	2. Prologue 2: The story kicks in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story arrives!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, you've got the characters, I've got a plan. And the plan actually has big holes and flaws that I'll maybe fix later. I'm trying to keep this stuff canon... Maybe not very canon related, but at least canon compatible. So this is not an AU if there are no contradictions with Undertale, and knowing me there will be a lot of contradictions, but I'll think of something to fix them. Enjoy!

I was sitting in a dark room, with a hooded man sitting in front of me. I have no idea how I got there, the last thing I remember was going to bed. The man in front of me looked at me and said:

“Tra la la. The next few months of your life will be very interesting.”

“Excuse me?” I replied, having no idea what the man was talking about. Or woman. I realized his hood made it indistinguishable.

“You will make friends and enemies. The real question for me is: Which one will I be to you?”

“Umm” I declared stupidly, still having no idea what was happening “And you are…?”

“Doesn’t matter.” The man answered with a… I could have sworn he smiled under the hood.

“Nothing will matter in the end.”

“It kind of does and kind of will. I woke up in a…” I took another look at the room and suddenly recognized it. It was THE room. As in ‘THE room in THE house in THE town that me, mom and Alice agreed to never talk about’.”

“Why did you bring me here? What time is it? How long have I been asleep?”

“Time is an illusion here” The man answered neither of my questions. “You will understand where you really were in about ten seconds. Tra la la.”

“Wait, how can ten seconds pass if time is an ill-” I suddenly blacked out.

 

 

I woke up in my house just where I fell asleep – cuddled up with Alice, on my bed. Quietly, not to wake the girl, I slipped out of the bed and sneaked down the stairs.

Mom was still asleep, I assumed. I took my phone along with my charger and put them in my pocket. Making breakfast for myself was easy, I could eat cereal for twenty years and never get bored of it. I began eating when I heard screams. The villagers were shouting, alarmed by something. From their voices, I could hear that the something was a pretty big deal. I ran to the door to check what the something was.

“Monster!” I heard someone screaming. “Get your hands off that child!”

Waaaaaait what the hell.

Okay, I was pretty sure that I didn’t want to meet any pedophiles. But how could I just stand here and wait? That kid needed help. I ran out of my house and hurried where I heard the screams.

I entered the town square. It was small, with a bed of golden flowers in the middle. I saw a large creature put a child on them. The creature resembled some kind of humanoid goat. It was standing in a purple robe with some symbol on it. People were hurrying and grabbing all the weapons they had nearby, including shovels, pitchforks, and rakes. I saw them attack the monster with all of the weapons.

And the monster just smiled. It grabbed the kid and began walking towards the mountain. It walked quickly, no one could keep up with it. As it walked, it left a trace of… Dust?

“Hey, dude, what the hell is that?” It was one of my classmates. I thought he was talking about the monster, but I realized he was staring directly at me. Like all the people here, for some reason.

“What?” I asked, and then realized what I did.

I ran out of the house without my coat.

I started to shiver. ‘ _Shit it’s gonna end like nine years ago I need t_ _o_ _run I have to hide shitshitshitshit’_ I thought, but then realized running home was not an option. People would kill me AND mom, and probably Alice too. I looked in the monster’s direction. It was already far away. The village was around one mile away from the mountain, and the monster has already halved the distance.

I realized that running after the creature was my only option.

I started sprinting, jumped up and flapped my wings. Mom thankfully cut holes in all of my shirts, so that wings could fit in. Flying always felt like an injection of endorphins, and I realized that I have never flown during the day. Only at night, to maintain shape. When I didn’t use my wings for a long time, they would get fragile and weak, and moving them would be painful.

The monster started climbing when I was around half a mile away. It quickly got on the side of the mountain, and kind of… walked into the mountain? The surface got all wavey and started behaving like a wall of water. I landed near the place the monster entered the mountain. I reached the wall and it kind of… I don’t know how to describe it. The place close to my hand got messy and began to look like some liquid, except it stuck to the wall. I could feel the hairs on my hand stand up. The surface felt like energy. I mean, I’ve never been electrocuted before so I’m in no place to say, but if energy could touch me without frying my skin, it would feel like that.

I heard the townspeople run in my direction. They were about three hundred yards away and kept coming quickly. I slipped my hand inside my pocket and felt relieved. The phone and charger were still there. I quickly texted my mom something like “everyone found out bout wings, going to the mountain now, dont follow, luv u”.

Then I noticed something strange. Something floated out of the mountainside, a shining… red… thing, with a white outline. The humans were close, but couldn’t see me or the thing at the moment. I instinctively reached my hand towards it, touched it, and heard something like a child’s voice.

_Come on Chara, we’re going home._

Aaaaand that’s when I fainted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tokyo ghoul root A opening in the distance]


	3. Chapter 3: Basically just talking.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cade wakes up in a strange lab, and has some explaining to do.

The first thing I could notice was my massive headache. Really massive. Remember that time when you got your worst hangover? This is three times that pain. The next thing I noticed was the fact that I was lying on some kind of bed. It was not a normal matress, but some kind of a hospital bed.  
“Wheeerrrrree…” I managed to murmur. My mouth felt strange as I was speaking.  
“Calm down! Y-you may have a terrible headache right now, I’ll t-take care of that, just please don’t panic!” I heard a high-pitched voice. Then some panicked footsteps.  
Suddenly a bolt of pain raced through my left arm. I jerked, but somehow managed to stay still. It felt like a syringe, so whatever that was, I hoped it helps me.  
The headache slowly eased, and I managed to open my eyes.  
“A-are you alright?” The voice asked again, and I saw that it belongs to a yellow lizard in a lab cloak.  
Wait, WHAT?  
I blinked and looked again. The lizard, apparently a woman, was nearly human-sized and had a pair of glasses on for some reason.  
“Are you alright?” She repeated. ”You look like you saw a human!”  
“Umm… Yes, I’m fine. Who are you?”  
“My name is Alphys! I’m the royal sciencist of the Underground. What’s your name?”  
“Cade. I’m…” I stopped, after seeing my hands. For some reason, they were covered in green scales. What the hell?  
I got up and ran to a conveniently placed mirror. The thing I saw in there? Definitely not human. Not even mostly human. Maybe partly human. Just humanoid, covered in dark green scales, with claws and sharp teeth, a tail and, of course, wings. I barely fit in my clothes, it felt like I was seven feet tall.  
“What happened to me?” I asked.  
“What do you mean? I’ve examined you, and you are perfectly healthy.” Alphys answered.  
“I mean… Why am I a DRAGON???”  
“Umm… What? You look like a pretty average monster! Monsters take various forms, that of a dragon is not exceedingly common, but still normal.” Alphys was clearly confused by my confusion.  
“Well… I think we have a lot of talking to do.” I had no idea what was going on here, but I hoped to find out.  
“L-let’s talk upstairs, okay? This place gives me creeps, even though it’s my own lab.” She went into a narrow corridor. I followed her into an elevator. It carried us to a lab, with much stronger lighting than the previous one.  
“T-take a seat, I’ll make some tea and then we’ll talk.”  
I sat on a chair, and Alphys went into a cleverly hidden kitchen. The wall literally opened before her as she pressed a few wall-shaped wall-colored buttons.  
While she was making tea, I took a moment to look around. The lab was blue, with yellow spaces between floor tiles. A large monitor was standing under a wall, displaying a video feed of some snowfields.  
The lab had two escalators onto the second level, one moving up and one moving down. I didn’t know why to put escalators into a place inhabited by one person.  
“It’s ready,” Alphys said and sat on a chair near the table. “So. Where are you from?”  
“Ebott.”  
“Very funny.” Alphys behaved like I was sarcastic.  
“No, for real. I live in the Ebott town.”  
“You do realize that we’re all under Mount Ebott?”  
“Wait.” I’ve never known there was anyone living under the mountain. “You mean… There are caves under Ebott?”  
“Yes, of course!” Now she was really curious. “Where do you live? What’s that ‘Ebott town’ you told me about?”  
“It’s… umm… on the surface.” I replied.  
“THERE ARE MONSTERS ON THE SURFACE???” She shouted.  
“No! Of course not!”  
“Then… How the hell did you get there?”  
“I’m, uh, human.”  
I could tell from her face that she didn’t believe me a bit.  
“Okay, I know I don’t look human at all. That’s why I was surprised down there, in front of the mirror. I mean, I’ve already had wings, no one knows why, but I had normal human skin.”  
Alphys spoke after a long break.  
“Listen. You mustn’t tell anyone that you’re human.”  
“Why?”  
Alphys turned on a nearby radio and tuned it to some official speech. I listened.  
“...three days ago we lost two children, two young princes, that symbolized all of our hopes and dreams. One sacrificed herself, in order to free us from this terrible prison. The other one has been taken from us by humans, who killed him mercilessly, despite receiving no harm from him. Therefore I, King Asgore Dreemurr, in the presence of all monsterkind, declare war against humanity. I shall kill every human who enters the underground, and when I collect seven human souls, the barrier will be broken. We will roam free, and take over the surface!” After that, much cheering and shouting “Kill The Humans! Kill The Humans!”  
Alphys turned the radio off.  
“This message has been broadcasted non-stop for three days.” Suddenly, she stopped.  
“What?” I asked.  
“You arrived here almost three days ago. You entered the lab, behaving like a lunatic, and collapsed onto the floor.” Alphys got suspicious. “Did you follow Prince Asriel into the Underground?  
The name ‘Asriel’ seemed strangely familiar to me, although I was sure I’ve never heard it before.  
“Umm… There was this tall goatlike monster in a purple robe carrying a human child. Could it be him?”  
“M-most certainly.” Alphys said. “Although Asriel was just a child, we don’t know how a human soul affects a monster’s body.”  
“Wait. That king on the radio said something about collecting seven souls. What does that mean?”  
“A soul is the entire self of a human or a monster. Y-your brain may collect the data from your senses, but it’s only a medium. The real ‘you’ are in the soul.”  
“Okay” I nodded “but why collect specifically human souls? I mean… I know he wouldn’t kill his subjects, but some must die anyway? Like… accidents, aging, that stuff?”  
“Although most monsters indeed die of age, monster souls are far weaker than human ones. The former Royal Scientist calculated that all of the monster souls in the Underground are equal to one human soul in power. The majority of monster souls are so weak that they vaporize immediately after death.”  
“Oh.” I suddenly felt powerful. “And what’s that ‘barrier’ thing?”  
“The Barrier was set up by powerful human mages, to imprison the Monsterkind. It’s the only way to enter the Underground. You must have crossed it at some point.  
“Wait a minute.” I felt like I swallowed a boulder. “Do you mean that I’m unable to go home?  
“Well… Yes. Although there is something you could do,...”  
“Then how did your prince get out?  
“That’s the something. The barrier could be crossed while having the power of one human and one monster soul, but… You would have to kill someone.”  
“Oh. That… ain’t happening any time soon.”  
Alphys looked with surprise. “What?”  
“I’m not killing anyone.”  
“That’s good. And just killing “someone” wouldn’t do. As I said, most monster souls disappear after their body dies. You would need to kill a monster as strong as Asgore. I… don’t want to see that encounter happen.”  
“Yeah” I replied. “Me neither.”  
Alphys stayed silent.  
“So” I resumed “What now? Is there a place for monsters that magically appeared out of nowhere?”  
“Y-you can stay here. I mean, at the lab.” Alphys stated, to my surprise.  
“Seriously?”  
0:0323:40 9:47 “You’ve seen how many hospital beds I have. But, uh, I’ve got something better!”  
“What?” I got curious.  
“Come on,” she said, going to the escalator. I quickly followed her.  
The upper floor was stuffed with… stuff of various categories. There was a huge anime poster on the wall, a few bookshelves, a wardrobe, some kind of juice machine and… a one meter high cube.  
“Behold!” Alphys exclaimed. “The greatest invention of the Royal Scientist!”  
She pressed a button on the cube. It started to transform, shift, move pieces of itself into different places to uncover something like…  
“A bed?” I asked.  
“That’s actually a cubed.” Alphys giggled. “It automatically cleans itself, arranges the bedding perfectly and has a built-in alarm. It can also close itself with you inside in case of a cave-in, and you’ll be perfectly safe inside. It has water and food supplies.”  
“Amazing” I whispered. “But how does that fit inside a cube?  
“D-dimensional magic!”  
“You guys can use magic?”  
“You bet!” Alphys outstretched her right hand. Electric energy jumped between her fingers.  
“Cool.”  
“Yeah. A-anyway, it’s getting late. I have a few guest bedrooms hidden behind the walls, equipped with such beds. The bathroom is near the kitchen. Can you take care of yourself?  
“Yeah. Goodnight.”  
“Night.”  
I got a quick bath, thinking about the future. Even though some crazy king probably wants to kill me right now, seeing Alphys made me feel that living with monsters may not be that bad.


	4. Chapter 4: The advanced process of finding a cloak

I woke up in an unfamiliar room. Then I recalled yesterday’s events and grumbled. It was hard to start a day with enthusiasm when some king of monsterkind was apparently desperately trying to kill you.

Going out into the main lab room, I spotted Alphys watching some kind of anime.

“Are you watching JoJo?” I asked, making her jump.

“U-umm… No, I was just… I mean, do you want some breakfast? I-I have some noodles in the fridge!” She behaved like I just saw her stealing gold.

“It’s okay Alphys, I watched JoJo too. Don’t worry, I’m not the type who likes giving spoilers.” I smiled.

“I actually watched it s-seven times before, but we don’t have much anime down here. I was really lucky to find the whole season in the garbage dump.”

“Wait, where?” I haven’t heard of such a place.

“You see, it’s under that waterfall In Waterfall...” I gave her a confused look.

“Right,” she corrected herself, “I didn’t tell you about the geography of the Underground. Do you want to hear about it?”

“Yeah, it’s not like I have any hopes of getting home soon, so I might as well learn some landscape stuff” I replied.

“Well, first I have to warn you. Remember the King on the radio? He’s REALLY bad at names. I mean, he called his son a combination of his and his wife’s name!”

“Seriously? If I have a kid sometime, I’m definitely not naming it Calice.”

“Who’s the ‘Lice’?” Alphys seemed curious about my love interests.

“D-Doesn’t matter.” I blushed(Can dragons blush?), and Alphys laughed.

“Anyway, The Underground is divided into four main areas. We’re now in Hotland, the nearest area to the Barrier. It’s mostly made out of lava and magma rocks, but it’s also the most technologically advanced area, thanks to the Core. I’ll explain in a moment.”

“Next up lays Waterfall, made out of blue sedimentary rocks, large pools of water, and, well, waterfalls. This area brings nostalgia to those who have seen the Surface, thanks to scattered mini-waterfalls simulating rain, and gems hanging down from the ceiling that apparently resemble stars.”

I could understand old monsters, whose only joys would be sitting under luminescent gems, and comparing them to long-forgotten stars. Then I realized I might end up this way too if only I manage to live this long without being killed by any monster king.

“Then there’s Snowdin, the coldest area of Ebott. The water from Waterfall sometimes falls there in the form of snow, due to unique pipelike rock formations on the huge cave’s roof, which cause the water to flow horizontally onto the area over Snowdin. Only monsters with thick fur live there, except two who don’t have flesh in the first place.”

“Oh.” That must’ve been convenient.

“And the last area are the Ruins, made mostly out of purple brick. These are the remains of our old civilization. Unfortunately, they’re off-limits now, because the gate connecting them to the Underground is closed for unknown reasons. I really don’t get why King Asgore doesn’t finance an expedition to dig through the wall near the gate, he starts behaving really strange when talking about that area.”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s nostalgic and doesn’t want to break into his old home?”

“I don’t think that’s it… Wait. How did you know that Asgore used to live there?”

I thought for a moment, then replied “I don’t… know. It just seemed obvious to me.”

“Well, nevermind that. So. Um. What are your plans for the future? I mean, I-I’m not kicking you out, but… I thought you would like to have a job and a budget of your own?”

I realized that I don’t want to live off Alphys’s money. “Yeah, but I’m not actually sure what job I could take. I’m not really skilled in anything.”

“For starters” Alphys began, “we need to find out about your magic type.”

“My magic type? I mean, could I use magic?” It would be cool, but maybe impossible.

“We don’t know anything about why you have this form, but you look like a monster, so it’s possible that you may be able to use magic? I mean, some humans can use it. Someone did put up the Barrier after all.”

“I don’t know about any human using magic.”

Alphys looked shocked. “For real? There were mages, there is proof in history, magic couldn’t just disappear, could it?”

“As odd as it may be, humans don’t walk on the streets with fireballs or lightning bolts in their hands.”

“As far as I know, humans don’t have wings” Alphys replied.

“You have a point there.”

“So.” She resumed. “I don’t know what happened to human magic, but your body now is far from human. We shouldn’t assume that you can’t use magic. I know a perfect place to check it out.”

“Really? What is it?” I thought of some magic dojo, with reinforced walls that can withstand any kind of attack.

“L-let’s go to the garbage dump!”

Seriously…

“Do you have any, um, coat? Or cloak?” I asked. “Color doesn’t matter, I just need to have one.”

“Why?”

“To hide my wings, obviously.”

“You don’t need to do that! Various kinds of monsters have wings, and...” She stopped, noticing that I was shaking. “Are you okay?”

“N-n-no, I need a cloak. No one can know. Please, I-I can’t leave the lab without a cloak.” The mere thought of going outside without one made me shiver. It’s irrational and stupid, I kept telling myself, but… I just couldn’t bring myself to do that.

“Um… I don’t have a cloak that would suit you. Do you need a new one, or can it be used?”

“Any cloak. Just big.”

“Okay, there is a shop that sells anything near the MTT resort, that’s a monster hotel. I can find one there, although I need to scan your body to find a good suit there.”

“Wait. You have a 3D scanner THAT BIG???”

“It’s not only a 3D scanner! It can also check your soul, measure your heart rate, and even define your favorite flavors! I made it myself from junk.” She sounded really proud.

“Um, just a 3D scan, please. I don’t want anyone looking into my insides. No offense, but...”

“It’s fine. Most monsters also prefer to keep it private. Come on.”

We descended into the bottom lab, where Alphys led me into yet another room hidden behind a wall.

“Why do you have so many secret passages?”

“I have valuable stuff here! I trust you, but safety never hurts. Anyway, here’s the scanner.”

I gasped. The machine was a giant cylindrical cage two times bigger than me. I could see cameras every five inches placed one below another. Next to it was a computer made out of various electronic parts.

“Walk inside. I know it looks dangerous, but I promise that you will walk out safe and sound.”

I went into the cage. The base and the top started shining with white light, and the cameras spun around me, sticking to the cage’s walls.

“All done!”

“That fast?”

“Hey, it has a LOT of cameras! And a great computer to process it! Humans throw away the best gaming stuff, thinking it’s broken. Anyway, I’ve got your scan. Now I’ll convert that into code and send it to Bratty, and she’ll text me if she has a cloak that fits!”

“Whoa whoa whoa! Just how technologically advanced is the monster society?” This system was so digitalized…

“In comparison to human? Pretty advanced.” She giggled.

We returned to the upper lab, and Alphys said that they have a cloak that fits me.

“It’s just the right size, it looks like that.” She showed me an image of a grey thick piece of cloth.

“It’ll be perfect, but… Is it really okay for me to demand something like that?”

“Don’t worry, you’ll return the favor someday! I’ll go pick it up.” She said and left the lab.

Five minutes later a fish monster busted into the lab, yelling “ALPHYS! Where are you?! ALPHYS!”

“Umm, doctor Alphys went out to grab something from a store, what...” I froze, noticing that the fish was holding someone in her hand. I looked closer and gasped. Though dramatically changed, and covered in orange fur, the unconscious person before me…

It was Alice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first cliffhanger OwO


	5. Chapter 5: Cade realizes that he has a cellphone.

“_____e…”

“a_i_e...”

“ali_e...”

“Alice!”

Alice snaps to consciousness as I call out her name again. “Cade?”

“Yeah, that’s me. How are you feeling?”

“Umm… I have a terrible headache...” she says.

“This should help. It’s in a syringe, prepare for pain.”

I injected the needle with the same medicine that Alphys gave me on the first day underground. Well, third, actually.

“I feel bet… Wait, why are you a dragon?” She looked at her own hands. “WHY AM I A FURRY?”

“Calm down, don’t panic, don’t panic! Slowly. Breathe. In. Out. In-”

“I am perfectly fine, you moron.” She always teased me like this. “What the hell happened to me?”

“Well… To be honest, I have no idea.” I responded.

“Great. Okay. So, where are we?”

“In a lab under Mount Ebott. It turns out that there is an entire monster population sealed under the mountain.”

“Oh.” Then she realized what I just said. “OH. UM. OKAY?”

“Let’s take the elevator up and I’ll explain everything.”

…

“So what you’re telling me is that we’re trapped under a mountain unless we kill a monster king that also wants to kill us, and for some reason, I’m a fox.”

“Yeah.”

Alice inhaled.

“What the FUCK.”

“I know, right? Hey, it’s not that bad. Alphys lets me stay here, at least until I get myself a house here.”

“Wait, do you honestly plan on staying here? With monsters?”

“Hey. Now listen to me. The monsters live here in a population.”

“And?”

“Members of a population usually don’t kill each other for no reason.”

“AND?” Alice looked irritated.

“We look like members of the population.”

“Are you implying that they won’t kill us for no reason?

“Exactly.”

“Except that crazy king.”

“Hey, he doesn’t need to know we’re human.”

“Alright. So who’s this ‘Alphys’ person?”

“She should be here any second.”

The lab doors opened.

“Speak of the devil,” I said.

“I’ve got the coat! It didn’t even cost that mu-” Alphys froze, seeing Alice.

“Hello. Are you Alphys?” Alice greeted.

“Yeah! And you…?”

“I’m Alice.”

“OMG Cade don’t tell me that’s your human GF.” She giggled.

“You said I’m your girlfriend?!” Alice shouted.

“I don’t know, aren’t you?”

“That’s not the point!” Alice blushed.

“Whoa whoa calm down, breathe, in-”

“Cut that out already! I can breathe on my own!” She knew I was teasing.

“Okay.”

“I guess you’ll also want to stay here?” Alphys asked. “It’s fine, I have lots of rooms, and I earn much as a Royal Scientist.”

“Thanks!” Alice exclaimed.

“No problem! I’ll make some dinner in a moment. Make yourself comfortable.”

As Alphys went off to the kitchen, Alice looked at me seriously. “Why do you have a tail?”

Wait.

I had a tail???

“I don’t know” I replied, looking at my newly discovered body part. “I think it’s supposed to help me fly.”

“Looks like it, it has those flaps. I already want to try them out. Wait. On second thought, I don’t want to show anyone my wings.”

“Why? We’re in a monster society, I bet they’ll look perfectly normal!”

“No. I just… Don’t want to show them. Howgh. Period. The thought alone makes me shiver.”

“Do you think it’s from… back then?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Do you want to work on that?” She asked.  
“What do you mean?”

“Like, psychology help. Slowly adjusting, maybe some mental exercises, and you’ll get to flash your wings in public in all of their glory without a single trace of fear!”

I was really scared of showing off my wings but then thought about flying without the need to hide.

“Yeah, that would be cool.”

“Hey, you know, me and Alphys were about to go somewhere to check out if I can use magic. Wanna come?”

“Hell yeah!” Her face lit up after hearing the offer. “I mean, you never know if you don’t go!”

“Alright. But, umm, tomorrow. It’s getting late today.”

“Okay, okay...” I knew she already couldn’t wait.

“Don’t try to do anything magical in the lab, we might break something” I warned.

“OK. So… Why don’t we try to contact home in the meantime?”

“Um… That’s… a good idea, actually. Hey Alphys,” I called the lizard monster, “Can you take us to a place as close to the surface as possible?”

“Umm, okay. Why?” Alphys was curious.

“I still have my cellphone, we might be able to go home.”

“Wait. WAIT.” Alice got angry. “Are you saying that I fucking trapped myself under a mountain to look for you because YOU FORGOT YOU HAVE YOUR DAMN PHONE?!”

“Um, kind of.”

“Great!”

“Come on, you would’ve done it anyway. But we seriously need to call Mom, so that she doesn’t come to look for us.”

“Okay. Can we go there now, Alphys?” Alice asked.

“Y-yeah!”

I grabbed my cloak and Alphys led us out of the lab.

First thing I noticed: Hotland was HOT.

Like, really hot. Lava pools to left and right, magma stones under our feet, and occasional air vents on the ground.

“What are these?” I asked.

“They’re for quick transport. Magma islands are high, but there are spaces between them, and vents are cheaper than bridges.”

“Yeah, but... How do they work?”

“Watch this.” Alphys stepped onto a vent, and got launched into the sky by a stream of hot air! Then she landed perfectly safe on the next island.

“Amazing! Do they measure your weight and launch you accordingly strong?

“Yeah! You figured it out quickly!”

“But what does that mean for the user?” Alice didn’t understand.

“That means that no matter how heavy or small or heavy users are, they’re always going to land in the same place.”

“Cool!”

“Yeah! But we won’t use them on our way. We’re going to Waterfall. More specifically, to the garbage dump, which is so close to the surface that trash falls down there. It’s actually our main source of technology! But nobody throws out anything that works. That’s why we had to create our own computer systems, and we’re unable to connect to the surface. And then you blasted in with a perfectly working human phone!”

“So THAT’s why no one knew you are here” I realized.

“Yeah. But, if you could, I’d like you to tell your mom to keep it a secret. We don’t want humans to know that monsters live under the mountain, prince Asriel and your disappearance must have caused enough gossip. If they send an expedition here, we’re doomed.”

“Why? I mean, if your king kills them and breaks the barrier, you get to get out and destroy humanity! Isn’t that the perfect scenario for you?”

“K-king Asgore doesn’t actually want to kill anyone.” These words surprised me. “He declared war in rage, but he knows perfectly well that we’ll only get wiped out. I mean, there are a few thousand monsters here, but billions of humans exist in the world. If they want to kill us, they’ll kill us easily. Just look at the previous war. No souls were taken, and countless monsters have been dusted.”

“Dusted?” I didn’t understand that word.

“When a monster dies, he or she dissolves into dust in seconds. Monster bodies are just small amounts of matter, held together by magic and wishful thinking. We can’t even eat much solid food, so we cook the matter out of it, and replace it with magic.”

“Is that why the steak tasted like steak juice?”

“Yeah. Monster food dissolves into energy as soon as it gets into someone’s mouth.” She stopped. “We’re here.”

The garbage dump looked like, well, a garbage dump, except with waterfalls. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone, discovering that it had indeed connected to the network. Countless notifications from the last few days flooded my screen.

“Okay, the internet works. I’m calling mom.”

I chose mom’s contact number and called. After a few beeps, my mother’s worried voice spread across the cavern.

“Cade! Thank goodness! Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. Do you have time to talk?”

“Yes, I do. Is Alice with you?”

“Hello, Ms. Jade! I’m here! We’ve got some explaining to do, but make sure that nobody can hear us.”

“Alright.”

We told mom everything about monsters, the underground, the barrier and that we’re staying in the lab for now. When we finished, Mom sighed and said:

“That’s a lot to take in, but I believe that you can handle yourself. Avoid that king, call often, eat healthily and go to bed before nine!”

“Okay, okay, we’ll make sure to take care of ourselves.”

“And, if you could, please send me a photo of you both and doctor Alphys. I promise I’ll delete it right away, I just want to see what you look like now. And… Doctor. Thank you very much for helping Cade and Alice, I’ll pay you back once I get to meet you.”

“T-that’s no problem, miss Jade! My lab is big and I don’t lack money, so they won’t be much trouble for me. And I feel way too lonely sometimes.”

“I’m glad to hear that they won’t trouble you. So… Goodbye!”

“Bye, Mom!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to Bookworm for reminding me to mention that Cade has a tail.


	6. Chapter 6: Finally Some Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some fluff and jokes at the beginning, then Alice and Cade finally get to check out their magic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Some sex talk. I mean, not any describing or anything, just mentions of sex. Mostly teasing.

When I went out of the guestroom into the upper lab, leaving Alice still asleep, I saw Alphys watching anime. She turned her head around to see me.

“Do you always wake up this early? I mean, yesterday I also saw you watching anime. Don’t you have, like, royal scientist stuff to do?

“N-not at the moment. I work when King Asgore has a project for me. At the moment all I do is check up on the Core, and that’s ten minutes behind the monitor a day.”

“Don’t you have to, like, go there?”

“No. The Core has sensors all over itself, and they check everything. Even electric wires have special outlines that will send an alert when a wire is broken.”

“Cool!”

“It was hard to accomplish but worth it. Before that ten people had to walk all around the place and look for any damage. They would often get lost, because the Core is made out of swappable parts, resulting in a new layout every day!”

“What?” I certainly did not expect this. “Why would you make a power plant rearrangeable?”

“For starters,” Alphys began, “The Core is the only way to get into the royal palace. It has an elevator that allows easy access, but can be easily turned off. The Core’s mobile structure allows us to turn off the elevator and sweep the parts so that security systems are all working at once, in case of a h-human trying to kill Asgore.”

“Oh. Another reason not to do that.”

“Y-yeah. It also serves more peaceful purposes. For example, in case of a single system overheating, we can quickly move a cooling system there to take care of the situation. Of course, we never know when something like that happens, and that’s why I must be available 24/7, and why the Lab is near the Core.”

“And that’s why you wake up early.” I understood.

“Yup.”

We watched supernatural JoJo fights on the screen for a while, after which Alice entered the room.

“Hey, you two.” She sounded really sleepy.

“W-why are you up so early?” Alphys sounded alarmed.

“Why ask?”

“F-fox and other kinds of mammal monsters need at least 12 hours of sleep a day! Back to bed! Now!”

I was really surprised by that statement. Perhaps that’s why I would always wake up before Alice during sleepovers.

“Okay, okay. Cade, can you… I mean…”

“On it.” Alice always had difficulties sleeping on her own. She needed to cuddle up to someone to really fall asleep. ‘Maybe that’s also one of her fox aspects’ I thought.

We went back to bed. I waited until Alice’s breath steadied, and I returned to the lab.

“You two are really cute when you sleep” Alphys greeted me.

“How can you… Wait…” I looked at the big screen. It was still playing JoJo, but I could have sworn that I didn’t hear the anime sounds twenty seconds ago.

“Did you spy on us?”

“Umm,” she replied “Mayyyyybe?”

“I’m fine with that, but don’t do that when we want some privacy, okay?”

“I’ve taken care of it! Did you notice the triangular lightswitch near the regular one?”

“Yeah, what does it do?” I’ve already tried that switch out and didn’t notice any changes in the lighting, room décor or bed configuration.

“When it’s flipped up, it turns on the privacy setting. Every room has one. It blocks the camera feed and does a few other things to ensure that what happens in the room, stays in the room.”

I laughed at the reference. “Okay, but why would I want to use it?”

“I don’t know,” I didn’t like the look on her face, “You share this room with Alice, after all. Maybe you two…”

“Shut up! We’re just friends!”

“Close friends” she replied.

“And?”

“Nothing” She pretended to back off and reminded me of my mother talking about that stuff.

Was it THAT obvious?

“Okay, listen closely. We’re not doing that. I’m still fifteen!”

“Yeah, you’re legal! Monsters can do it from fourteen and up.”

“Wait, what?”

“Monsters grow up more quickly than humans” Alphys explained.

“Okay, you know what? Let’s drop this topic. I really don’t feel like having interspecies sex ed.”

Alphys smiled. “When a male and a female monsters reeeeallyyy loove eeeach oootheeer...”

“STOP! No, you know what? We’re going to wake Alice at this rate, and as tsundere as I am, she is ten times that. Whatever you assume, don’t tell her, or she’ll make you fly to that garbage dump we visited yesterday. And she’ll be WAY more brutal than these air vents." She wasn't even a little bit tsundere, but Alphys didn't have to know that.

“Okay, I’m not saying anything,” she said, but I knew she’ll eventually pick this topic later.

Let her try.

We watched JoJo for five hours straight and saw Alice enter the room again.

“Did you sleep well?”

“I was having a nightmare about some morons screaming about sex talk,” she said, and we both burst out with laughter.

“What?”

“N-nothing” I managed to keep a straight face. “Just, say that again and tell me that it doesn’t sound funny.”

“Okay, you have a point here.”

“A-anyway,” Alphys began, “Since we’re both here, I think that today we should test what magic both of you can perform.” She then explained to Alice what she had already told me about magic, and that she knew the right place to do it.

“What place? Some sort of reinforced magic training room?” Alice asked.

“No” Alphys denied “You’ve been there already.”

“Where?”

“L-let’s go to the garbage dump!”

…

We arrived at the place. I wasn’t sure what to do next, luckily Alphys began instructing us.

“It’s hard to explain how to use magic to an ex-human,” she began, “but try imagining it like a muscle inside your body that doesn’t move it, but does something else.”

“What?”

“We’ll find out. Imagine channeling energy through your body.”

Alice tried. “I’m not sure… WOOOAH MAKE IT STOP!!!” She suddenly got launched five feet into the air by a wind blow and started hanging above the ground, waving her limbs around.

“C-calm down! This is wind magic. Take a position that will help you lighten your fall, and try to… Stop doing what you were doing!” Not professional advice, but it helped. Alice slowly fell on two feet.

“That was weird,” she muttered, “but cool! If I learn to control it, I’m sure I’ll fly better than Cade!”

“Keep dreaming,” I replied, “because I may get the same kind of magic. And then I’ll fly around at the speed of sound! Look.”

I tried to do what Alphys told me to. I could feel some kind of power pouring down through my hands and feet. Suddenly I felt something touching my foot. I looked down and noticed a small pool of white goop climbing up my legs. It sped up, touching my ankles, and then knees. A few white chains – literal chains – sprouted from the ground and wrapped around my hands.

“S-stop it, Cade!” Alphys shouted. “Stop using magic!”

I tried to stop the energy, and it worked. The chains dissolved into goop, all of which fell back to the ground.

“What magic was that?” I asked.

“Creation magic. It’s not common and comes in many kinds. You mentioned that you had a 3D printer, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, back on the surface. Why?”

“Goop is common in this kind of magic, but did you notice the chains? I think that your mechanical experience with assembling and printing parts had its effect on your magic.”

“And what does that mean?”

“That you’ll be good at making structures and mechanisms. Creation magic usually consumes some of your energy while creating an object, and returns around seventy percent after destroying it. We can test what your instinctive patterns are by attacking…” She looked around for a potential target, and then said “That broken table.”

“Okay. How do I attack something?”

“Easy, reach out your arm and launch the energy.”

I did as she said, and a bunch of stuff jumped out from the ground. I saw chains moving really quickly, and a few solid structures like long pistons or crossbows attached to the ground, firing at the table, which was now completely unrecognizable, shattered into pieces. There was also some other stuff in the magic wave.

“Nice! You seem to be advanced in mechanical structures. Were these crossbows auto-reloading?”

“Yeah, by a motor.”

“Cade” Alice suddenly said, “Remember that gatling gun you printed a few days ago?”

I realized what she meant, and smiled. “Get ready for the destruction of the universe!”

“What?” Alphys exclaimed, but it was too late. I summoned two eight-barreled doom machines around my hands, remembering the design, and started firing. Massive blows of white energy started rapidly striking the wall. There was now a huge crack in it.

“You printed this thing???” Alphys asked.

“Not really. It was a rubber band toy back then..” Alice explained.

“Anyway, I think this lesson is over. Remember what you were doing, and don’t do it at the lab. I don’t want uncontrolled magic gatling guns wrecking my devices, okay?”

As we began walking back, I realized that I was tired. The magic really does consume energy, I thought. And then I thought about my table-breaking magic wave. There was one thing in it that kept bothering me. It contained mostly mechanical stuff, but…

I could have sworn I saw a few reddish knives in it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	7. Chapter 7: We Meet Undyne And The Ships Get Official

Days passed by without anyone noticing. I called Mom several times, and it turned out that Summer has already arrived on the surface. We also noticed that the monster calendar is two days late – on June 7th, Monsters thought it was June 5th. My and Alice’s magic lessons continued, I’ve recently learned to create structures that would remain solid even after I stopped paying attention to them. Alice could now fly decently, although she still had to master discreteness. Every time she tried floating, pieces of trash would flow in circles around her. This was the perfect description of her personality – she was good at everything she tried, but her environment would not remain intact. The last time she made pancakes they tasted perfectly, but the kitchen was a mess afterward.

“Up already?” Alphys asked one day. “Won’t Alice wake up without you?

“I’ve left her a 1:1 scaled Cadedummy” I replied, and she giggled.

“W-won’t she notice the lack of your soul?”

“What? How?” I didn’t know that was possible.

“Monsters can detect other monsters’ souls, didn’t you know? It requires a bit of focus, but it’s possible. I-it’s way easier while sleeping, so couples or siblings can even have shared dreams sometimes. You two should try.”

“We’re not a couple” I protested, but it was hard to convince Alphys after she saw us sleeping together for weeks.

“You toootally are.”

“No!”

“Alice and Cade, sitting on a tree, K-I-S-S-”

“Stop that already!”

“You stop that Cade,” came a voice from a barely awake Alice, “you should at least be able to admit it.”

“W-what?”

“We’ve been unofficially dating for months, even before the Underground, and you can’t even say that!”

“Yeah, unofficially” I emphasized.

“Wanna get official with it?”

“Um, why now?”

“Because the longer we wait, the harder the decision!”

“Okay, so what do we do to make it ‘official’?”

“We don’t do anything, lizard brain. We deal with it and stop denying.”

“Umm, okay. Alphys, you may now resume teasing me.”

“Heeeey, it’s not fun when it doesn’t drive you mad!”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m no longer getting mad.”

“Anyway, U-Undyne will be visiting today and I want to i-introduce you to h-her?”

“Why are you so nervous about that?” I teased.

“N-no reason” Alphys replied.

“Reeeeealllyyyy?” Payback time. “Alphys and Undyne, sitting on a-”

“OKAY OKAY SHUT UP ALREADY OMG look at the time I gotta go do some research for the core byyyye!” And she ran off to the bottom lab.

“She has a crush on Undyne,” I told Alice.

“Yep.”

We went off to eat breakfast. A few days ago I discovered monster cereal, and it turned out that it was WAY better than corn flakes on the Surface. And up to that moment, I thought corn flakes are the best meal. Monster ones did not only taste better, but also had no negative effects on health!

“So who’s this Undyne person?”

“She actually brought you here in the first place. She’s a … maidmer? I don’t know how to call her, but she’s like a reversed mermaid. She has legs, but also lungs and she’s covered in blue scales. And an eyepatch.”

“Wait. She brought me here?”

“Yeah! As far as I know, she’s one of the physically strongest monsters. Plus she hates heat, so that must have been a real challenge to her. You should thank her when you meet her.”

“Okay, I should.”

“As far as I know, she’s also the captain of the Royal Guard. That’s the funniest part.”

“What’s so funny about them?”

“They’re like the military, but their main job is catching humans.”

Alice shuddered, and then realized the irony and laughed.

“W-wait! Don’t tell me...”

“Yeah! She totally brought a human to a monster hospital!”

We giggled for a moment, and then stopped because we heard the lab door opening.

“Alph! Are you home?!”

I walked up to Undyne.

“Hello Undyne, Alphys has already introduced you. I’m Cade, and this is Alice.”

“Um, hi. Thanks for the save back then.”

“No problem! It’s our job! But…” Undyne’s eyes narrowed. “What were you doing near the Barrier anyway?”

“I, um, wanted to touch it…” Alice lied.

“WHAT? Do you know… Do you have ANY IDEA how DANGEROUS that was? You could DIE! You would need all of the souls in the Underground to even pass through!”

“Yes, I know that was foolish, but… I wanted to feel its energy. That would help me understand how we can break it.” Alice was a skilled liar.

“Okay, punk. You’re definitely something special if you made it out alive, but… What did you feel?”

“Umm… I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Oh. Okay. Sorry.”

Everyone was silent for a while, and then Alphys came out of the elevator.

“H-Hi Undyne! Um, I-I made this magic field reinforcer you asked for, d-do you want to, um, test it?”

“HELL YEAH! Where is it?”

“I-I left it in the, um, bathroom! I’ll go pick it up!”

As Alphys ran back to the elevator, I spoke.

“Umm, what’s that device you asked Alphys for?”

“I have no idea how it works, but it reinforces a monster’s magic! It’s the coolest device Alphys has ever invented! Um, aside from a heating fridge.” I did not ask.

“And what’s your magic type?”

“SPEARS! The best weapons EVER!”

“Then I don’t think it’s a good idea to test it in the lab. There are some really important devices here that you wouldn’t want to damage.”

“Oh.”

“But hey, you can always test it out at the garbage dump!” Alice proposed.

“Alright! Then it’s settled! Can’t wait to try it out!”

Alphys came out of the elevator AKA bathroom, and said “I have it right here! Alice is right, w-we should test it at the dump!”

“LET’S GO THEN!!!” Undyne shouted, and suddenly she grabbed Alphys and Alice. She then tried to lift me, and…

“URGH! What the HELL are you made of? How HEAVY are you?”

“I don’t know, actually. Last time I checked I was about seventy kilograms...”

“WHAT??? What do you eat, punk? Okay, I’m taking these two, don’t make me wait!” And she ran off to the door, still holding Alphys and Alice above her head.

I ran out of the door and suddenly stopped.

Was I really going to fly?

The images from nine years ago flashed before my eyes, and I remembered the pain from the thrown rocks.

But then I realized that I was among friends. No monster yet has judged me for my wings, and they even didn’t question them.

If there was any moment to fly, it was now.

“To hell with the cloak,” I thought, threw my coat back to the lab, jumped on an air vent and spread my wings.

 

Flying in Hotland was great. There were streams of hot air I could use as boosters and a lot of open space. I caught up to Undyne in no time.

“You’re fast, punk!” She shouted. “But I’m faster!”

That was not true. While she was running with Alphys and Alice on her back, I rushed through the air twice as fast. We entered Waterfall after ten seconds, and I got to the garbage dump ten minutes before her.

“Huff… huff… Using wings is cheating… Punk…” I heard from her after she arrived.

“Yeah, I cheated with my wings. This is actually the first time I’ve raced with anyone.”

“Seriously? ARE YOU KIDDING?! I TRAIN TWO HOURS A DAY FOR THAT!!!”

“Hey, there’s no secret to my wings! Just talent and perseverance!”

“Hey, nice quote. Paps would love it.”

“Your father?”

“PAPS, not POPS! It’s a nickname. He’s my friend.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Can you put us down please?” Came an irritated voice from Alice.

“Oh, right. Barely noticed ya, fufufu!”

“Thank you.”

“S-so are you testing it out?”

“YEAH!”

Alphys pulled out something small from her pocket.

“Wait, THIS? It’s tiny!”

The device was indeed small, not even an inch long. It was a tiny grey square with glowing blue lines that shined the stronger the closer the square was to Undyne’s head.

“Y-you can wear it under your eyepatch!” Alphys proposed. “I-I even added a bur to it so that it can be easily attached. Okay, get it on you and try!”

“Wait, don’t you need to set it up or something?”

“No! I’ve already t-tuned it using the spear you gave me!”

“Okay.” Undyne knelt. “Here it goes!”

She quickly raised her arms and thirty blue spears suddenly sprouted from the ground.

“Woah! This thing is AWESOME! Fifteen used to be my limit, and I’m not even tired!”

“Pretty cool!” Alice shouted.

Suddenly a thought appeared in my mind.

“Hey, I’ll try the same thing,” I said.

“Hey, that took me a lot of practice. Do you really think you can just copy that trick?”

“I can’t. But she can.”

I reached my hand out and a full-sized white cyborg Undyne appeared before me. With a little effort, I made her kneel, and raise her arms just the way real Undyne did, and around fifty spears sprang up.

“WHAT THE HELL WHY ARE YOU SO OP??? HOW?” Undyne’s mind was blown.

“Um, creation magic.”

“Yeah, but HOW?”

“I tried channeling magic through the fake Undyne. Don’t know how, but it worked!”

“Wait,” Alice called a time-out. “Does that mean you can use any kind of magic as long as you know someone who can use it?”

“N-no, that can’t be true.” Alphys corrected. “Whatever shape would the spears take, they were still made using creation magic. I-if you tried moving wind using a copy of Alice, it wouldn’t work. Well, I guess you could archive it through creating cooler fans, but you wouldn’t be able to move air itself.”

“Oh. So I just wasted magic on creating an impostor Undyne.”

“Hey! Nothing’s wasted! I can always BEAT IT UP!” For some reason, Undyne was extra hyped for beating her own copy.

We’ve spent an hour making new dummies, chatting and watching Undyne throw spears at inhuman speed, which was possible because she was a monster.

“If she fights humans so fiercely, I wouldn’t want to be human around her” I stated.

Undyne smiled. “Good choice.”

She eventually went back to her house, and the rest of us returned to the lab. I stayed up late, looking at the big monitor in the main lab.

Then I noticed a small red exclamation mark in the corner of the screen.

I found a touchpad on the device and clicked the symbol. A window opened and I gasped.

It was a live video feed of a snowy field and a purple door with some symbol on it.

And a twelve-year-old human kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The main storyline is already planned, but I always accept slice of life chapter propositions! See that brick wall between you and the comment button?  
> Me neither!


	8. Chapter 8: We Meet The First Human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some really complicated stuff happens here, so - again - feel free to comment and ask if you don't understand something! I like putting myself in Cade's position and wondering what I would do in his place, and it's often crazy. Anyway - read on!

I made sure that no one was looking and rushed to the door. I left a quick note to Alice and Alphys and ran out of the lab. I flew through Hotland and a part of Waterfall and realized that I had no idea where I was going.

And then I felt something. Something in my chest, that urged me to keep flying and showed me the way.

‘I guess that’s my soul, huh?’ I thought. ‘I have no idea how it knows the Underground but I might as well listen to it. I’ll think about that later.’

I’ve passed some kind of a hot dog stand and flew out of Waterfall into the cold fields of Snowdin.

My soul kept showing the way, and I followed it blindly. Soaring through the air I encountered the kid. Something in his face was strangely familiar.

“Hey. What’s up?” The boy asked as I landed in the snow.

“No time to talk. We need to hide you somewhere. Come on.”

I suddenly grabbed the kid and flew through the air. He surprisingly did not object, instead, he made himself comfortable in my hands.

“No protests at all?” I asked, flying.

“You’re huge. I don’t stand a chance against you, and you do not seem to want to harm me.”

“Smart choice. Now...” I spotted a lone house in the middle of a snowfield, way below Snowdin. “Perfect.”

“WhaAAAAAA?” He screamed as I glided down in that house’s direction.

I started ‘air braking’ fifty feet above the ground, and ‘thwomped’ into the snow.

“We need to hide you.”

“Why? All of the monsters I met were nice to me.”

“Did they know you’re human?”

“Well no, but...”

“Exactly. Come on, let’s go into this house.”

We knocked on the door. Something barked inside, and I opened to see a fluffy white dog wagging its tail.

“Umm… Hi? Can we go inside?”

The dog barked friendly. I took that as a yes, and entered the house.”

“First of all,” I began after sitting on a sofa, “what’s your name?”

“I’m Caled,” he said, and I facepalmed myself. Of course, I knew that kid!

“Right! It’s you. Caled Smith, right? I used to help you with homework, remember?”

“Umm, I don’t remember any dragons helping me with homework.” I double-facepalmed myself.

“Yeah. That’s because I wasn’t always a dragon.”

Caled opened his eyes wide. “Cade?”

“Yeah. Good to see you.”

“I didn’t know… I actually went to look for Alice. She disappeared a few days after you did, and I thought she went to look for you, so I went to Mount Ebott.”

“Well, that was stupid.”

Caled made an angry face. “Why?”

“Because you’re kinda trapped here and the entire Royal Guard is trying to kill you and stuff?”

“What? How was I supposed to know?"

“Well, you could have asked my mom. She’s the only one who knew. Wait, nevermind that. I told her not to tell anyone. Umm, do you want me to call her and tell her to tell your parents?”

“Yes, please! Wait, you have your phone!”

“Yeah, and monsters just appear to have AC electricity.”

“Okay, but… You do realize that dog over there heard everything we said?”

“Oh. Hey, puppy, you don’t care about what we said just now, do you?”

“Woof!” Happy as ever, without any bother in our humanity.

“Hey, you don’t mind Caled staying here for a while?”

“Woof!” The dog jumped on Caled’s lap and licked his cheek.

“Well,” Caled said, “I guess I’ll just stay with this puppy here. I don’t mind.”

“Won’t you get bored sitting here?”  
“Nah, I’m patient. I can stay. Besides, I’ve got a buddy here!” Caled petted the dog, whose neck became a little bit longer.

“Okay. Wait, how does this dog earn money?”

“Woof!” The dog barked, ran up to the wardrobe… and pulled out a huge set of Royal Guard armor.

“Cool! Are you a… What?” Caled asked.

“Caled. That’s a Royal Guard’s armor.”

“Whoops. Oh. WHOOPS.”

“Don’t worry, this dog won’t capture you, will it?”

“Umm, I actually can’t picture him capturing anyone.”

Yeah, but...” We heard a voice from the door. “Can you picture ME?”

We turned around to see… a furious Undyne entering the house.

“Well, well, well, a human AND a traitor? Dammit, I thought we were FRIENDS!”

“Who’s that?” Caled asked.

“Umm, Undyne, that’s Caled Smith. Caled, this is Undyne, captain of the Royal Guard.”

“Why the hell would I care about his NAME?! It’s a damn HUMAN! And you were HIDING HIM!”

“He’s twelve! It’s just a kid! What did he do wrong?”

“He got bloody BORN, that’s what he did. We need his SOUL, his life won’t do any good!”

“What?” Caled shouted. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t have time, I was going to. M-maybe we can work something out… I know. Undyne, will breaking the barrier destroy his soul?”

“Why would I CARE? He deserves to die!”

“In that case, wait here.” I quickly created a wall between us and Undyne.

“Hey!” She shouted. “Let me in!”

“Why would I?” I asked, and then pulled out my phone. Thankfully Alphys upgraded it to connect to Underground’s network. I quickly called her.

“Hey, Alphys. Quick question. Will the seven human souls break after destroying the barrier?”

“U-um, no, our research showed that all the energy we launched at the barrier bounced off in the opposite direction undamaged, so they should be, umm, intact. Why ask?”

“I’ll explain later. Bye.”

I turned to Caled. “Hey, how patient are you?”

“Pretty patient.”

“Okay, that must be enough. Stand still. I’m going to cryofreeze your body and pull the soul out.”

“WHAT?” He was shocked.

“Yeah, I have a mad scientist spirit. Don’t worry, there’s a 99.9% chance that you’ll be alright.”

“What about that 0.1 percent?!”

“Nevermind that.” I began creating a structure inside Caled’s body. It was hard, being careful enough to not overwrite any of his cells, but I somehow managed to infuse his body with my magic.

In the meantime, Undyne was furiously throwing spears at my wall. I sighed and added a few inches thick layer to the wall.

“You won’t break through, Undyne. This wall is too strong for you.”

“Then I’ll have to break AROUND IT!”

“No, that won’t work.” I focused, and created a dome above myself and Caled. Creation magic is pretty overpowered if you ask me.

Then I slowly stopped all of the atoms in Caled’s body. I felt cold resonating from him. Makes sense, because temperature was basically vibrations of atoms.

I added two protective layers that surrounded his body, one that vibrated on the outside, and one still on the inside. I left a pure void, a complete lack of atoms, between them.

I quietly thanked my physics teacher.

Then I made my creation permanent, meaning that Caled’s body will remain intact until the barrier is broken, shoved it into the wardrobe, and pulled his soul out.

But my job was not over yet. I remembered his body from the inside, the matter my magic caged around, and created an exact copy. It was hard, duplicating actual matter, and I was near exhaustion. But I managed to destroy the protective dome around us both in order to regain some energy, shove Caled’s soul into its new body, and push it to life.

“Wha...” he began.

“I can’t take it.” Undyne realized that there was now no wall between us. Acting time. “The dome… too hard to maintain. Please. Don’t hurt him. Don’t…” I passed out.

 

I was in a familiar dark room, with a familiar hooded man (woman?) sitting before me.

“Tra la la. Very smart you are. His body will remain in that wardrobe, his soul shall break the barrier, and you will then reunite them, bringing your friend back from the dead.”

“Yeah, I was always the quickest thinker in class. But I still don’t get your motives. Why bring me to this place again?”

“That’s because you can never escape your demons. Sooner or later, you will have to come here yourself.”

No.

This was impossible.

I thought that I escaped that city.

I thought that I escaped the pain.

“But you need time to prepare, don’t you? Fine then, tra la la. I will return you to your friends and enemies, your current joys and problems. But mind my words. We will meet again, more than once, more than twice. Beware of your future, and face it bravely. I will wait.”

Everything became black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don't understand everything the characters are talking about, don't worry - it's just me attempting to create a layer of mystery. Also Cade's solution to the problem was one of the fanciest things I've come up with yet. Hey, I'm just trying to give a happy ending where Toby decided not to!


	9. Chapter 9: Sudennly, A Human

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cade wakes up and explains what he did with Caled's body, and notices that a new surprise has "fallen" into the story.

“Cade!” I heard a distant shout. “Wake up!”

I opened my eyes and saw two worried faces: Alice’s and Alphys’.

“Thank goodness you’re okay! We were starting to get really worried about you” Alice said.

“Where’s… Caled?”

“Who?” Alphys asked, but Alice knew who I was referring to.

“That human was Caled? Oh no…” She also knew him. He used to be like a younger cousin to her. They would go to the cinema together, or stay up late and play Uno. I could tell that she was really sad.

“Hey Alphys,” I said, “I’ve got to tell you both something. But you need to turn on the privacy setting and make sure no one’s listening.”

“O-on it,” she said, and we waited until she finished.

“No one can hear us”, she confirmed.

“Okay. Caled’s not dead.” I could see Alice’s face brighten. “I mean he probably is, but not for long.”

“What?!” Alphys shouted. “Stop joking! No one has ever been able to bring someone back from the dead. Even if you have his soul, it will have no body to return to.”

“And what if it does?” I asked.

“Well, if the soul finds its former body unaltered, without any changes created by time, then it would indeed be possible. W-we don’t know for sure since both monster bodies and souls disappeared immediately after death, and that’s all we were able to examine so far. B-but human bodies age, right? Even the best cryofreeze equipment we have wouldn’t hold a body without a change.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Alph! I created a structure inside Caled’s body and forced it to stop vibrating. I took care of the cold by adding two layers with a void between them. If anything can preserve a body, that’s it.”

“So what you mean is...”

“Yeah. We might be able to bring him back to life.”

“Wow.” Alice was clearly amazed. “And you’re going to do that with the six remaining humans?”

“That’s the plan, yeah” I confirmed.

“A-are you not going to lose too much magic? Creating s-such structures must be tiring...”

“It’s gonna replenish soon, it usually takes me three days. The chances that another human will fall down so soon are really small.”

 

 

Boy was I wrong.

Around two hours later I noticed something on the big screen. I felt something heavy in my stomach. It was the same exact exclamation mark that appeared when Caled walked out of the ruins. No, no, no, no! It can’t be happening now! I… If it’s who I think it is, then…

It’s not that bad, actually. I opened the window and yep, there she was. It looks like Caled’s older sister went to look for him.

According to what I remembered, Victoria was seventeen and really brave. She was like those anime girls that went to the gym, rode on motorcycles and weren’t afraid to give a trashing to anyone who tries to mess with them. She would definitely handle herself here. If she went to look for Caled, she would likely keep walking deeper into the Underground, and eventually encounter the lab. That was in fact great, but this plan had one… no, two flaws.

In order for me to preserve her body, she would have to wait here for around three days. She used to get really impatient when she had to wait for her brother for three minutes, let alone days. We would need to make her trip here as long as possible, without even leaving the lab. I’m certain that she would beat up Alphys and Alice with no problem… Wait.

Alice and Victoria used to be best friends back in the day. Alice used to care for Caled when Victoria was away, and they would both go on parties that I was too socially awkward to attend to. If there was one person able to convince Victoria to stay, it was her.

I called for Alice and Alphys (I was currently trapped on a cu-bed in the main lab, too tired to walk) to come and showed them the monitor. As soon as Alice saw the video feed her eyes widened.

“Is that really her?” she asked.

“Yeah, I think so. She likely went to look for Caled. Well, at least we can tell her he won’t be dead for long when she comes here.”

“Are you planning on preserving her body too?”

“Yeah. She can be very moody, but we’ll try” I answered.

“You know that it’ll be hard to convince her.”

“Yeah, that’s why you’ll do it.”

She nodded. “Makes sense.”

Alphys then asked, “Can you please explain who you’re talking about?”

“Yeah. That human is Victoria, Alice’s old friend and Caled’s brother.”

Alphys nodded. “You know you can’t do the same thing you did with Caled to her. You need to recover. I on the other hand…” She smiled mysteriously.

“Can you do something like that?”

“Umm, I’ve never tried with a human soul, but I managed with something very similar. I’ll tell you later. If you don’t manage to c-cryofreeze her body, it’ll be our last resort. I’ll use a soul scanner so that we can adjust the body to the soul.”

“But where are you going to get the body?”

“I’ll build it.”

“What?!”

“I-I’ve done it once, but it’ll be easier to explain once you meet him.”

“Meet who?” Now I was really curious.

“Just wait, nevermind that. And…” Her expression became serious. “I’ve been telling about some things that… no one knows about lately. I-I would like you both to keep them secret.”

I realized that, even though she said it’s okay for us to stay here, it was now hard for her to do some things she used to do easily before. I felt guilty.

“N-no! It’s n-not like that!” she objected after seeing my worried expression. “I’m not throwing you out or anything! I-I just want you to, you know…”

“Yeah, okay, I get it, you’ve also got private stuff here, and we should sometimes mind our own business and not tell anyone.

“No! I meant… umm…” I noticed that she started to hyperventilate, and at that moment I realized how insecure she must have felt this whole time. From her favorite places in the Underground, I deduced that she must have grown up poor, maybe even lived in the garbage dump. Suddenly getting the job of a Royal Scientist has probably stressed her out, making her think that she’s not skilled enough to do that job and increasing her self-anxiousness. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but that’s just how I saw it.

“Alphys.” Alice clasped the lizard’s head in her paws. “We know that it’s hard for you to do stuff when we’re around, and we’re sorry for that. If there’s anything we can do to help, we’ll help. Don’t be afraid to ask.”

“O-okay. Just… Don’t tell anyone, okay?”

Alice smiled. “You got it.”

And then we began preparing for Victoria’s arrival.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the frequency of humans falling into the Underground, I promise that they'll stop appearing in the next few or fewteen chapters.


	10. Chapter 10: We Get To Know Victoria Better

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holidays really help with writing, that I can tell you. I hope they'll also help you guys with reading!

The next morning I noticed Alphys sitting before the monitor. Instant noodles were heating in the microwave, and I could see Victoria on the screen. She was already in Waterfall.

“How much time do you think it’ll take her to arrive?” I asked.

“An hour, no more. She’s already been in the dump.”

“Wait, how did she cross the dump? It’s totally not the way to the lab!” It was a dead end. How could Victoria have crossed it?

“There’s a bridge system twenty meters (~65 feet) above the dump. She totally jumped down from there!”

Sounds like Victoria alright.

“Are we waking Alice then?”

“You don’t need to, I have good timing” responded Alice from the bedroom section.

“Perfect.”

We waited in the living room, chatting and eating. Just when we were done, we saw the door open.

“And what’s this place?” A familiar voice greeted us. Victoria was standing in the door. She was just as tall and muscular as ever.

“Hey Victoria, how are you doing?” I asked, standing up.

“First of all. Do we know each other? Secondly, where’s Caled?”

“Yes, we know each other, and as sorry as I am to say that, Caled is temporarily dead.”

She stared at me for a moment, and then stated “What the fuck.”

“Yeah. We hope to bring him back to life when the Barrier is broken.”

“You can do that?! No, wait. You said you know me. How?”

“That’s the weird part. I’m Caled. This is Alice.”

She just stood there for a minute, processing what I just said. Finally, she managed to ask “You mean… From the surface?”

“Yup. You know about Alice’s ears?” Victoria was in the small group of people Alice revealed her secret to. “The Barrier transformed us when we came here.

“Okay,” she said slowly, “then why are you transformed?”

“Remember that coat I always used to wear? I used to hide my wings underneath.”

“Oh. Okay. Give me a while.” She sat on a chair and just stared at the floor for a moment. It looks like we gave her too much information at once. Then she looked up.

“So how are you planning on resurrecting Caled?”

I told her how I preserved her brother’s body. She smiled.

“Just as crazy as ever, aren’t you?”

“In fact, I was planning on doing the same thing with you.”

“W-WHAT?!” She stared at me in utter shock. I was not expecting that reaction.

“Hey, calm down, I didn’t ask Caled but he didn’t seem to be in much pain. It’s just that your temporary body will dissolve after around two days so better get killed until then, it’ll be over sooner than you think.” I might’ve gone a little overboard here.

“You’re not just crazy. You’re absolutely fucking mad. Why the hell would I agree to that?”

“...because you’ll die permanently if you won’t?”

“I can just go through the barrier!”

“Even if you somehow get through the Royal Guards, a human soul is not enough to cross it.”

“Really?” Victoria seemed to be surprised. “No one told me that!”

“A human soul is not enough to cross. You need at least one human AND one monster soul. Also, it’s incredibly hard to take one, because they completely disappear after death. You would need to take the soul of the king of all monsters.”

“Well… Shit. So are you gonna do the cryogenic thing or not?”

“I’ve done it around 24 hours ago and my magic needs to replenish. Can you wait here for two days?”  
“Two days? Do you have ANY IDEA how long that is? I would be already at the barrier!”

“And what would you do with this fact? You’re strong, but Asgore is the king of all monsters. You wouldn’t last a second fighting against him.”

I noticed something in her posture change. Her breathing got faster. I could see drops of sweat on her skin.

She was panicking.

“I know how hard this must be for you,” Alice said, “but this is the only way you can stay alive. Please, you need to wait. Your mother, your brother… They will all wait for you. You mustn’t abandon them!”

Victoria was looking at her with teary eyes. “Y-you... wouldn’t agree for that if you were in my place. If you experienced what I did.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t. But you’re brave. And bravery means overcoming your fears. I know you… And if I know one person… who after enduring what you did would clench their teeth and do it, it would be you.”

Victoria stared at her for what felt like hours and said “Fine. You three better have some good food. Where’s my room?”

After Alphys and Victoria left, I turned to Alice. “Why was she so stressed?”

She looked at me with a sad expression. “Victoria and I… We settled in Ebott five years ago. Before that, we used to live in a big city. Her father was really abusive. He would often drink, beat her or Caled, and then declaim that it was an accident. She would often end up in the hospital, and that’s why she was so afraid. She must have associated it with an operation, and her father beating her. I’m sure Caled would react similarly if you gave him time to think.”

“One day we both decided that this needs to stop. We’ve set up a camera in her house. It managed to record… you know what, and my mom carried it to the police. Victoria’s parents divorced, her father was sentenced to prison. She was examined by psychologists, and they advised her and her mother to move, since that city may become a PTSD trigger.”

“My mom helped them collect the money to buy a house, and they relocated to Ebott. We relocated too since I was her best friend. Ebott was chosen by a family friend I know nearly nothing about, he said that ‘my potential was able to transform only there’. I never understood what he was talking about…” Suddenly she looked at me. We both thought of the same thing. “That guy… Did he know about the Underground?” I asked.

“How am I supposed to know? I think he did, that was a strange choice of words.”

“We need to speak with him after the Barrier’s down,” I said. “And when we do, it’s going to be a really long talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep adding so many plots to the story that I'm probably going to mess something up, feel free to point my mistakes out!


	11. Chapter 11: Soul Scans Finally Done

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School's over, guys! YEAAAH! I actually managed to squeeze out some good grades, so I'm really satisfied. But I won't talk you to death with my school successes, here's your chapter :)

“Since you three are all here, I think we should do all of you a full scan,” said Alphys the next morning, when we all gathered for breakfast.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Victoria asked.

“It means that I will scan for and save all data regarding your bodies and souls in my lab memory systems.”

Victoria spilled her tea.

“What the hell??? Why would you do that? I-is it really necessary? What if something goes wrong? What if we get hurt in the process? What if-”

“Whoa whoa whoa calm down! Victoria!” Alice stopped her. “Calm down. I’m sure that since Alphys proposed it, there is no danger whatsoever. Right, Alphys?”

“Umm, yeah! The scanner is like a regular eye or camera, just tuned into different light specters. Certain parts of the light phase through matter and get reflected when they encounter a soul. There are different reasons why I want to do it for each of you. Victoria, I want to scan your body and soul to make data for a plan B, which is building you a mechanical body. Your current shape must be known to me so that I can adapt it to what you’re used to, and I need to tune the container to your soul.”

“You mean… I’ll be a cyborg?”

“T-technically a cyborg is built out of organic matter aside from mechanical parts, but feel free to think of yourself that way if you want. Remember though, it’s a plan B. Having your biological body has many advantages over being a walking prosthesis.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll take your word on that.”

“As for Alice and Cade, I want to determine how your bodies and souls have changed after encountering the Barrier, aside from obvious deformations. Additionally, I would like to compare Cade to his previous 3D scan and measure his weight.”

“Why?” The last thing confused me.

“Remember how Undyne tried to lift you and said that you’re heavy? It’s strange because compared to Alice in the size you should be around her weight.”

“Really? Aren’t we different species?”

“Thought nearly all monsters look different from each other on the outside, we’re all made out of small amounts of dust and lots of magic from our souls holding them together. That’s why it’s really hard to make someone a mechanical form – a monster’s soul and body cannot exist separately.”

“About that, you’ve told us that you’ve made someone such a body before. How?”

“He… was a special kind of monster. And by the way, p-please don’t talk about him in public. The fact that I didn’t build him from scratch could make me lose my job.”

“Sorry.”

 

We took the lift to the bottom lab. It was as dark and creepy as ever. Alphys led us through the corridor and introduced Alice and Victoria to the scanner I was already familiar with.

“I-is it going to hurt?” Victoria asked nervously.

“No, you won’t feel anything, this is perfectly safe. Alice, why don’t you go first?” Alphys booted up the PC.

“Um, okay. What do I do?”

“Just step into that cage. The scanner will take care of everything else.”

After Alice went in, cameras began to rotate around her. They stopped after a few seconds.

“Is that all?” Victoria asked.

“Y-yes, it’s over. Victoria, will you try?”

The procedure repeated with her, and then myself. Alphys opened a program.

“Let’s see your bodies first. Victoria’s is made out of matter, it looks like. I won’t be much help here since this is my first time examining a human. Alice and Cade… Healthy dust, the magic percentage at regular ninety-seven percent. That means your bodies are in 97% made out of magic.”

“But how do you measure that?” I asked. “Does magic have, like, weight or...”

“No, its calculation is based on volume. All of your dust without magic could fit in 3 percent of your body. As for the souls…”She clicked through a few menus. An orange cartoon heart appeared on the screen.

“This is Victoria’s soul. As the visualization program shows, her main trait is bravery.”

“Really? How can you tell?” The woman asked.

“By the color. Monster souls are usually white, but they can be slightly colored based on one’s personality. And that’s where the interesting part begins. For monster standards, your soul is upside down.”

“Seriously?”  
“Yeah. Also, see these strings coming from the heart’s tip? That’s the connection your soul shares with your body. I suppose it’s connected to your mind. In a monster’s case, they would come out of the soul’s entire area, in all directions. That’s because a monster’s soul is connected directly to all of its body, holding the dust in place.”

“Let’s see Alice’s soul. It’s purple, so her main trait is perseverance. As we see here, its shape is similar to Victoria’s, but the connections are placed like in a monster’s soul. You have a monster’s body, after all. And Cade...” She stopped, staring at the screen. I looked too and saw a red heart.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, and then noticed.

Inside my soul, there was a white-green upside-down heart.

And inside it, was a bloody red human soul.

 

 

“Dude” Victoria begun “What the fuck is that?”

“I don’t know!”

“Cade” Alphys started “Did you happen to touch anything that looked like a red-white glowing heart, maybe floating in the air?”

“I don’t think that hap… Wait...” I looked back in time when I stood before the Barrier.

I remember touching something that exactly fit the description, a red-white heart floating in the air, a moment before passing out.

“I think I did, just before I entered the Underground.”

“Then we have a problem.”

“Why?”

It seems like you absorbed Prince Asriel’s soul, with Princess Chara’s soul inside it.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Θώθ, what's this?


	12. Chapter 12: We Finally Meet Sans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've pre-written a few chapters, and I'll try to post them every 12 hours or so. Enjoy!

“What do you mean I’ve absorbed their souls?! I mean… I don’t even feel different! Except that I’m a dragon, that is.” The possibility that my soul is not entirely mine blew my mind.

“That’s why you’re so heavy… Stronger souls need stronger bodies, and since you went through the barrier with the souls absorbed, your body became heavier. Fifteen percent of dust...”

“Makes sense actually, but… How do I undo this?”

“If you value your life, don’t. First, you will probably die as your soul will no longer have enough energy to support the dust. Second, even if you survive, your magic will be far weaker, and you won’t be able to preserve Victoria’s body. Or anyone's. E-even if it’s for someone else’s sake, please keep them inside for now.”

“ I suppose you’re right…”

We were quiet for a few moments until Alphys broke the silence.

“Who wants some ramen upstairs?”

 

As we were going, I noticed that Alphys was looking around nervously.

“Hey Alphys, why didn’t you design this place to be nicer?” I asked.

“I-I didn’t design it!”

“What?” That was a surprise to me.

“I’m not the first Royal Scientist here. The truth is, I still haven’t discovered the majority of this place.”

“Really?”

“T-there are multiple rooms hidden behind the walls, all shielded from X-ray technology. Scientists used to add many rooms and even systems that could be opened by hand gestures or magic types. Many of them have been lost due to the long period of time between the last Royal Scientist and me. I can’t even add better lighting without activating some alarm.”

“So if I did this...” I looked around and noticed a strange part of the wall. It seemed interesting to me for some reason, even though, upon closer examination, it was just a wall.

I touched this spot with my palm and emitted a small amount of magic from my hand.

Suddenly, the surface began to shake. I quickly stepped back as a wardrobe-sized piece of the wall retracted deeper and opened like a sliding door, to reveal a dark room with a nearly invisible machine in the middle.

“H-how is that possible?!” Alphys exclaimed. “I mean, the odds of you finding the exact place where the door lies, and having the perfect matching type of magic to open the lock are…”

“The spot was not random, I just felt like it was… important, somehow.”

“Well, that would explain it,” Alphys said. “Some monsters like to hide secrets for their descendants or successors. I heard that the last Royal Scientist was capable of using creation magic. Maybe he left this room here, and you just found it.”

“So what’s this thing?” I approached the weird machine. It began shining with white light. I touched it, and glowing letters appeared before me.

“It says ‘redacted’...” I said. Alice and Alphys exchanged worried looks.

“What?”

“Look at the letters closely.”

I focused on the first letter. To my surprise, it was actually a yin-yang symbol. The next one was a box, and the next – the Scorpio zodiac sign. I realized that what I assumed to be Polish was actually a line of weird symbols.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“And more importantly, how the hell did you read it?” added Victoria.

“I-I actually know someone who may understand what it means…” Alphys murmured.

Everyone looked at her.

“But not now, it’s not good for Victoria to wander around the town, and we can’t leave her at the lab.”

“Hey! I can take care of myself!”

“I-I know, but I’m worried about someone coming in and discovering you.”

“Why don’t you invite him here then? I’ll stay in my bedroom, I promise.”

“Okay, we can work with that. I’ll call him after you get there, he can be pretty fast sometimes.”

Five minutes later, when Victoria was back in her room, I found out what ‘pretty fast’ meant. Alphys called someone and asked “Sans? Can you come over to the lab?”

“sure, why?” a voice behind her asked, causing her to drop her phone.”

“OH MY GOSH SANS!” she screamed.

“what? i thought you were _bonely_ , so i used a shortcut.”

These words came out of the mouth of a short skeleton with a wide smile and a blue jacket. Two small lights were flickering in his eye sockets.

“Umm, this is Cade. He wanted to ask you some questions.”

The skeleton looked at me. His right eyelight instantly disappeared, and the left one grew into a blue flame. He threw his hand in my direction, and I felt magic grabbing my soul, pulling me backward, and painfully pinning me to a wall.

“S-Sans!” Alphys shouted.

“move away from him, he’s dangerous. you don’t even know what he did to me.”

I tried to remember hurting any skeleton but failed to. Maybe I did something to a human who then died and transformed into one?

“you really have guts, creating me and my brother, experimenting on us, disappearing for thirty years and then coming back, walter” the skeleton said.

“I’m fifteen and who the hell is Walter?!” I asked.

“turning incognito, huh? don’t even pretend. i’ll always remember this body, this so-” he suddenly stopped. “what the fuck is this soul?”

“WILL YOU JUST PUT ME DOWN SO WE CAN FUCKING TALK?!”

“oh, sorry. my bad. i mistook you for someone.”

“This Walter guy must have been a pretty terrible someone,” I noticed.

“yeah, and you look exactly like him. sorry.”

“So I wanted to ask you about the previous Royal Scientist.”

“huh, funny. that’s walter.”


	13. Chapter 13: Cade Discovers His New Family Member

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Felt cute, might as well release this chapter now :3

“Umm, I’ll just show you something and then we’ll talk” I proposed.

“okay.”

We took the elevator to the bottom lab, and I introduced Sans to the machine. His left eye began glowing again.

“how the hell did you discover this?” He asked.

“Alphys was telling me how the previous Royal Scientists used to hide secrets here, and I, of course, couldn’t stop myself from using magic on an interesting brick.”

“oh. this machine. it’s bad. don’t touch it. i’ll tell you everything.” He took a deep breath through his teeth. I noticed that he didn’t even open his mouth while speaking.

“remember how i said that walter created us? well. this is an incubator. i and my brother were born here.”

“he found two human corpses and decided to reanimate their skeletons with magic. then he started experimenting. his experiments were normal at first. he gave us color cubes, books and crosswords to check how intelligent we were. it got worse. he started hurting us, putting us into weird machinery. then we found out about his goal. he wanted to create artificial human souls to break the barrier. unfortunately for him, all he got were my and my brother’s monster souls. his later experiments were supposed to turn our souls into human ones. i bet that if we incubated with human souls, he would have killed us both on the spot.”

“then asgore found out. he was so pissed, he grabbed him and left. he thought that his scientist would never hurt a fly, and then boom. real disappointment. he practically adopted walter after he went out of the barrier.”

“He did?”

“yeah. we previously thought that there were no monsters left on the surface, it turns out that one managed to hide from the humans. he never really talked about his past.”

I had strong suspicions that he was not a monster, given his similarity to me, and the fact that he came from the surface.

“anyway, asgore went totally berserk on that guy. he’s usually nice, but can get pretty mad if someone does something to hurt someone else.”

Given the recent events, I was able to believe that.

“from what ive heard, he grabbed walter’s head, went to the castle, and shoved him into the barrier. His face started deforming, and he began to change, his face and scales started melting. asgore kept pressing, until walter darius gaster was no more.”

These words struck me more than Sans’s surprise attack.

“Wait. Waiwaiwaiwaiwait. Say that again.

“umm, ok, he pushed walters head into the barrier till that dude-”

“No no no, his name. His full name.”

“walter darius gaster, why?”

“Okay, now I’ll tell you a story too.”

And I told him all about how I used to be a human with wings, crossed the barrier, and became what I now am.

“hell, that story’s even better. i wouldn’t normally believe you, but you seem to handle my story just fine, so i’ll take your word for it. and what does it have to do with walter’s full name?”

“That was the name of my human father.”

Sans’ eyesockets went pitch black. He was processing what I just told him for a moment.

“how old are you?” he finally asked.

“I’m fifteen.”

“that… eighteen years ago was more or less when we were reanimated. so that makes us… some weird kind of brothers?”

“Yeah, but there’s something else I need to check.” I pointed at the incubator. “Can I somehow access this thing’s past log?”

“he always pressed this little button when he wanted to mess with the machine, but it doesn’t work when I do it. tried several times.”

“Well, I managed to open the wall, so it may work for me.” I pressed the button.

A white holographic keyboard was projected in the air. I noticed that there were these weird symbols instead of normal letters, but I was prepared for that. After relaxing and looking at the keyboard without focusing on certain symbols, I saw the normal QWERTY format. I typed [/log].

Three entries were displayed, two fifteen years ago, one week away from each other, and one two months earlier.

“but… how?” Sans asked. “there were only two of us. what does that mean?”

“It means that my father dearest has thought of a way to escape if things get hot,” I said. Sans managed to raise an eyebrow, despite having none.

“He created a monster soul and then absorbed it. If anyone found out, he would just escape through the barrier, which is exactly what he did. Going through it must have transformed him back into a human, it seems. Then he had a kid with my mom, which was me, and five years later he died from an accident. Or did he? Who knows? He may have been injured, but for someone who managed to escape the monster king’s wrath, it just sounds too lame to be true. I bet he’s hiding somewhere under a hood and lau...” I suddenly stopped. Sans looked at me curiously.

“Hey. Do you happen to know any monster who always walks in a dark blue hood and occasionally says ‘tra la la’?” I asked.

“uh, you’re too specific to not have figured anything out. there’s the riverperson, exactly what you described. wanna pay them a visit?”

“Yeah. I believe that’s our beloved dad.”

“cool. i know a shortcut. give alph a call real quick, we won’t be passing the upper lab. come on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am lonely please leave a comment if you've read this far which I doubt


	14. Chapter 14: The Long Awaited Encounter

As we crossed the corridors of the hidden lab, I kept thinking about my old man. Come to think of it, my childhood with him was not very happy. Mom was a great mother, but dad… He was not as good. I don’t have many memories of that time, but I remember that every time I wanted to play with him, he would just say “I’m busy” and find something to do.

At least he didn’t harvest my soul the moment I was born. That was definitely something.

“We’re here,” he said, and I noticed that the dirty floors of the underground lab have been replaced with orange masses of Hotland magma.

“When did we leave the lab?” I asked.

“dunno. somewhere along the shortcut.” His ‘shortcuts’ probably involved space manipulation, but I decided to not give it much thought.

We arrived at a river. There was no one present.

“huh. guess he’s not here. c’mon.”

He turned around, and I did the same. I was now looking at another river, standing in Waterfall. Now he’s using shortcuts without even walking. How lazy can he be?

“third time’s the charm.”

I blinked, and the scenery changed. Another river, this time in Snowdin.

Then I saw him.

He was standing on a boat, completely covered in a blue cloak, the one I’ve seen in my dreams. The boat was made of wood. Only silent blows of wind were between us and my father.

“Dad” I declared “Fuck you.”

“Tra la la, Cade, is that all you have to say?” a low-pitched voice responded. “Excuse me then, I have people to ferry.”

“we’ve just been at your every docking station and there was absolutely no one there. stop lying, walter.”

“Two smart sons, what else could I wish for? Such a shame that the other two turned out so… defective.”

“papyrus is not fucking defective, you psycho-scientist! he is the best brother i could ever have, the only one i would call defective here is a dad that experiments on his own children.”

The cloaked man slightly turned his head. “So what have you two come here for?”

“why the hell did cade have wings on the surface, why did he transform into a dragon, and why does he fucking look so much like you?”

“There is a single answer to all of these questions. It’s a genetic leftover from ancient clans, one that modifies around 95% of genetic code of all men from the Gaster bloodline. The firstborn from our family will always be a man, and all other children from the same relationship will be women. The man will grow dragon wings, and if he enters the Barrier, his body will be fully transformed. A similar pattern, but with women and men having roles switched, occurs within your fox friend’s bloodline.”

“okay, that kind of makes sense. so now’s about time we beat the crap out of you for being a shitty parent.”

“This will be pointless, but please, attack as much as you want.”

Sans raised his hand. A giant animal skull appeared in the air. It flew towards Walter, opened and blasted a ray of white energy in the man’s direction.

Walter however, was swifter than wind. He quickly dodged the shining beam.

The skeleton fired again and again, but the more he did, the smoother our father’s movements seemed to get.

Finally, he stood in place and said “I wouldn’t get hit by my own creation so easily, tra la la. But if you’re so desperate to express your anger, fire at will. I will not dodge this time.”

Sans touched his forehead like he was trying to focus, and six skulls appeared in a circle, with one more in the middle. They all fired at the cloaked man.

Walter was completely blown away. When the blasters stopped firing, the cloak was far on the other side of the river, and its user was nowhere to be found. I didn’t even get to see my father after nine years of separation.

Then I noticed that the cloak was moving. Slowly, it began to flow back towards us. Then it sped up while floating over the river, spun over the boat, and took the form of what I anticipated to be my dad.

“I am not here, son. This cloak was made in order to gather intel, using the combination of human and monster technology. Although I may speak to you here, my body and soul are far away. And if I were you, I would brace myself, because they’re going to become much stronger the next time we meet.”

The boat started to swim away.

“A few final words. Sans, I did not kill your older brother just to take his soul. I don’t want you to think that I’m worse than I am in reality. He turned to dust the moment he went out of the incubator, but for his soul was synthetic, I managed to take it before it also disappeared. Taking it was an act of mercy, not cruelty.”

He finally disappeared from sight.

“torturing us, on the other hand, could be called an act of cruelty” Sans muttered.

“Yeah, but you can’t change the past. You’re here, he’s probably somewhere on the surface, we’ll eventually find him and beat the crap out of his real body.”

“i already can’t wait.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Indeed he can't. Between you and me, I still haven't come up with in what circumstances they'll meet Walter again, but when I do, it will be so unexpectedd that no one's going to see it coming.


	15. Chapter 15: Is this really goodbye?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A small chapter, even for my standards. Sorry for that. Some events are just important enough to have a dedicated chapter, but too short to make it to one thousand words. I'm not great at emotional stuff, but I hope that my writing skills will improve someday. I may end up rewriting some chapters then.  
> 

I was already at the lab, and I have explained everything that happened in Snowdin to the three. We agreed that there’s no need to reveal my dad’s identity to the king. After all, we couldn’t tell him that I and Alice were human, and even if we left that part out, it would raise questions. Asgore would be curious where we got that information, and we had no clue how to answer that.

Victoria was fast asleep on her bed. My magic has already regenerated, and we all decided that it would be better to preserve her body while she was sleeping. She would neither panic nor move. We didn’t tell her, that would only make falling asleep harder for her.

I began generating the same structure I made inside Caled. It started growing on her spin, spreading through her body. She did not move, making my job much easier. In a few seconds the structure was complete.

I started working on the heat protection, generating a thick shell over her body. I separated it into two layers, and left half an inch of space between them. With little effort, I immobilized the inner layer and the structure. It was now not vibrating. The time did not flow inside the shell.

Finally, I created a substitute body for her. It was just like the original. I ripped Victoria’s soul from her body, and pushed it into the second one. Her new self opened its eyes and gasped.

“Okay, that went well” I said.

“Wha...” She looked at her old body, now covered in white substance, and then at me. Her expression became upset.

“Why didn’t you warn me?! What if something had gone wrong? What if...”

“Hey. Hey. Calm down. It’s okay. It worked.”

“But...”

“You should be going. The Royal Guard will probably find you after a few hours from now. Your body will dissociate in around two days, so tell them that human bodies disintegrate after eating too much monster food, that will explain it. I can’t make it permanent. I’ve lost too much energy. Sorry.”

She looked at me with a sad expression. “So am I just gonna die?”

“Temporarily.”

“Well, it’s not like I have a better plan. But before I go… can I say goodbye to Alice?”

“Of course. I’ll wake her up.” Come to think of it, the girl always woke up at the right time. I remembered what Alphys said about soul connections between partners.

I concentrated. I could feel a faint pulse in my soul, resonating in our room’s direction. I focused on it. The next moment I heard soft footsteps coming in our direction.

“Wow. How did you do that?” Victoria asked.

“The stronger relationship you have with someone, the more data you can transfer to their soul. It can take various forms. For instance, waking someone up.”

“What are you doing up?” Alice asked, entering the room.

“Victoria is going now. She wanted to say goodbye.”

“Oh...” Alice looked at her childhood friend. She ran up to Victoria and hugged her.

They didn’t say anything, they didn’t need to. They both went through a lot, and they deserved some time together.

Alice was seeing Victoria for the last time in... who knows how long? We don’t know when the seventh soul will fall into the Underground. That’s why they wanted to make these last moments longer, and they didn’t want to let go.

After what felt like half an hour, Alice broke the hug. She looked Victoria in the eyes for a few seconds.

“Take care, okay?”

“It’ll be hard to take care and die at the same time” Victoria replied. She acted like she was cool with it, but both I and Alice knew that wasn’t true. She was afraid of death.

But her soul trait was bravery. Many identified it as fearlessness, but it was only the outside. Truly, bravery was the power to overcome your fears.

We watched Victoria as she exited the lab, and entered the crimson rocks and lava pools of Hotland.

 


	16. Chapter 16: Looking For A Job

I escorted Alice back to the bedroom. She needed more sleep than me, after all. Alphys woke up a few hours later.

“Morning, Cade. Did you sleep well?”

“I didn’t get much sleep. I had to transplant Victoria’s soul.”

“Oh. So you did it already. I wish I could tell her goodbye...”

“If she stayed too long, the guards would get suspicious. The sooner she was gone, the better for us all.”

“I know.”

I prepared breakfast, and Alphys checked the huge screen.

“I was thinking,” I said, “about getting a job. I know that you’re fine with keeping us for free, but I would like to do something that helps everyone in the Underground.”

“W-we need to get you a cellphone first. The system here makes it necessary for everyone who wants to earn money.”

“Really? How does it work?”

“You can choose if you want to work during a certain day, and if you do, you get paid at the end of the day. If you want to take leave, you call. You can have any amount of holidays you want, but you need to mind your bank account while choosing them. Most monsters use the human system, taking five days of work, and two days free.”

“So do you know any place where they sell cellphones?”

“Do you mind if it’s, um, used?”

“Not at all.”

“Then your best bet will be a store near the MTT resort, our premier hotel. The place is run by two friends of mine, and you can buy basically anything there. None of the stuff is completely new, but you can find some nice deals. Wait, I’ll call them and ask if they have any cellphones.”

She talked on the phone for a few minutes and then turned to me.

“They have a few working phones in stock. D-do you want to buy one now?”

“Yeah. Can I borrow some cash?”

“N-no problem!” She handed me a sack of gold coins. “T-take the elevator to floor R3, it’s a short way from there. Just watch out for puzzles, you shouldn’t en-encounter any, but still, watch out.”

“No problem.”

I left the lab and followed Alphys’ directions. The elevators around Hotland were really convenient and had a nearly unlimited power source, which was the Core. Actually, I thought, I would be able to work there. Alice said that it was made of movable parts, which meant that there would sometimes be lots of pits since every part needs space to move. I would be able to fly to inaccessible spaces, or even make bridges in order to transport someone else. Not to mention that I was interested in technology.

I arrived at the resort. It looked like a typical hotel: a tall building, lots of windows, and a bright, futuristic design. I looked around, but no store was in my line of sight.

Then I noticed a poster taped to the hotel’s wall. There were no images, only text written in a black marker. It read ‘Hey! Go up this creepy alley to the right to find some great deals!’

I entered a hole in the wall right to the resort. Inside was a room full of… things. Various objects with different signs of wear were stacked up on shelves under every wall. I noticed a purple cat lady sitting on a chair near the wall. As soon as she spotted me, she shouted “Bratty! Come here! We’ve got a customer!”

“Coming!” a voice shouted back, and an alligator monster entered the room. “OMG! It’s not Alphys! We’re famous, Catty!”

“Umm, actually, Alphys recommended me this shop,” I responded. “My name is Cade. I would like to buy a cellphone.”

“Okay, okay, Alphys called us, we have a few prepared here. Do you want a human or monster phone?” Catty asked.

“You sell human ones too?”

“Yeah, but they don’t work. No phone would survive falling down fifty meters and laying in wet garbage.”

“Garbage?”

Catty’s face turned pale. “Umm, forget what I just said. These are working phones that we have.” She pointed to a shelf. “Which one do you like?”

Four phones were laying in front of me. There was a red phone, strongly damaged, two grey ones with different defects, and a green phone that looked surprisingly well.

“I’ll take the green one. Does it work?”

“Yeah! This will be 70G.”

I pulled out seven coins worth ten gold each from the sack Alphys gave me.

“Thanks for that!”

I took the phone and returned to the lab.

“Do you know where you want to work?”

“I think that work at the Core is reasonable. They’ll need to spend less time on moving the parts if I can just build bridges.”

“T-then you’re lucky, since as a Royal Scientist I’m the one responsible for managing work at the Core, and therefore hiring workers.”

“Really?”

“Y-yeah, but I need to test your magic. I-I know that it’s powerful, I just need to be sure that it’s strong enough to make a safe bridge. Come on.” She looked in one of her piles of mechanical devices, grabbed one, and left the lab. I followed her.

“Make a bridge between these two cliffs” she directed. I did as she said – the bridge was simple, with a few braces on the bottom. She put the device on the bridge and booted it up. It began absorbing air from the atmosphere, and I could feel the bridge tremble. The machine was getting heavy.

It finally stopped, and Alphys came closer to see the digits on the screen.

“Y-your bridge was able to withstand three hundred kilograms (~660 pounds).

“And where does that put me?”

“In a hired position.”


	17. Chapter 17: First Day At Work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not great with power plant terminology in English, so please point out each and every one of my mistakes in the comments. Enjoy!

“Take the elevator to the MTT resort, and go right through the hotel. This is the easiest way to get to the Core. When you’re there, ask a monster lady named Crae for directions” Alphys instructed. It was my first day at work, and I was preparing to head off. “As I said earlier, the regular pay for workers is 200 gold a day. You’re living with me, so you won’t really need it, but hey, it’s your choice.”

“Isn’t there, like, a legal working age? Like I’m not supposed to work until I’m eighteen?” That seemed really strange to me.

“Not really. Managers just don’t hire monsters not suitable for the job. If they look like they can handle it without problems, they’re hired. Crimes rarely happen, and if they do, it’s usually as bad as stealing some candy, so we don’t need a strict law.”

“That must be nice.” A society that doesn’t make its own life harder is far better than humanity. Maybe it’s actually better for me to stay here than grow up on the surface. “See you later, then!”

I took the elevator to the highest level of Hotland and entered the MTT resort. It was designed to revolve around some monster called “Mettaton”, who was apparently the owner of the hotel and the greatest TV star in the Underground. In front of the entrance was another door, presumably leading into the Core. I exited the resort and saw a bridge leading into the Core. The power plant itself looked like a steampunk novel writer’s dream: made out of metal, with pipes and gears on the walls that occasionally turned or hissed with smoke. A faint blue aura radiated from the inside.

The inner design of the Core was nothing like the outside: futuristic, with LED lights on the roof, blue walls, and tiles on the floor. The lights were animated, the room seemed to be pulsing with electricity and magic.

I saw one of the workers, a lady who looked like a mole in an orange helmet. I approached it and asked, “Excuse me, where will I find miss Crae?”

“That would be me. Are you the new intern?”

“Yes. I’m supposed to ask for directions.”

“Come with me.” She started to lead me through the power plant. “The staff here usually only checks if all of the mechanisms are working right. Thankfully most of the systems hidden deep in the walls have sensors that alert the Royal Scientist about any malfunctions, so we don’t need to break anything in order to do our job. The Core is easily rearrangeable thanks to its construction, but we prefer not to change its structure unless it’s absolutely necessary. Moving a single element takes a lot of time, and we need to make sure that no pipe or wire gets severed in the process. That’s why we value guys like you.” She pointed at me.

“You’ll learn everything with this device.” Crae pulled out a helmet with glasses and headphones from her backpack and quickly adjusted it to fit my head. She told me to put it on. She also gave me an ID with my name and picture on it. Looks like Alphys already took care of the paperwork.

“It’s a helmet combined with a phone.” I didn’t hear her voice coming from her direction but from my headphones. A present video feed of her face showed up in the right corner of my sight.

“Fly over that pit. I’ll tell you what to do next.”

I followed her instructions and spread my wings. While flying, I noticed flames scattered here and there on the faraway floor. I figured that it would be pretty dangerous to walk on the bottom. I reached another blue corridor.

“See this thick line on the floor thirty feet from you?” Crae asked through the headset. “That’s the edge between this and another piece of the Core. Touch the floor with your ID.”

I did as she said. A small panel emerged from the floor nearby. It had two screens, one with some kind of map displayed, a keyboard, a few switches, knobs, and buttons.

“Every place in the Core has a panel. This piece is an accumulator. You can search nearby modules of various purposes using the keyboard, they’ll show up on the map. This accumulator is empty, as you can tell from the info screen on the left. Try searching ‘thermal unit’.”

A few lights appeared on the map. I noticed that one of them was on the other side of the pit I just flew over.

“The green light is your current position, the yellow ones are thermal units. A thermal unit is a module that transforms the heat from Hotland into electricity. Now use the arrow keys and the enter button to select the module you’re currently on.”

“Now type ‘move’, and select the furthest empty space to the south. This is where you started flying.”

“When you’re done, press the red ‘confirm action’ button.”

I did what she said, and felt the floor rumble. The piece I was on started moving through the fire pit, glowing red light from the bottom and making beeping sounds similar to those of a truck riding backwards. After around a minute I was back where I started.

“Now connect the accumulator to the thermal unit using the panel. I won’t tell you how to, use your own brain cells.”

.    .    .    .    .

At the end of the day, I was overwhelmed. The Core had so many parts that required constant management, and people here kept regularly switching the modules to achieve maximum energy output. I figured that my job here will be everything but boring.


	18. Chapter 18: A Walk, A Castle, and someone you may know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've come up with a good way...

Days passed by. Without Victoria, the lab felt more empty than it ever did. _It’s funny_ , I realized, _that she stayed here for just one day, and yet left such a_ _void i_ _n our lives here._ Alice seemed more melancholic and calm, but I knew that she was internally crying because of her best friend’s death. Alphys was more nervous than usual, stuttered more often and I could see her hands shake when she was doing lab work.

And then I realized why Alphys is so eager to have us live in the lab. We have stayed here for over a month and kept her company for so long that leaving her could completely break her down. I decided not to move out unless it was absolutely necessary.

Today was Saturday, at least I decided to call it that, since most monsters took two days off every five working days, and this was the first of the two in that schedule. I caught Alice sitting on a chair and staring into the blue walls of the lab.

“Does the Underground have a good place for a walk?” she asked out of the blue.

“I-I know one” Alphys spoke up. She was also looking rather sad. “It’s a mysterious place, we don’t know much about it, and we’ve been unable to find out more f-for a rather strange reason. Do you, um, want to go there?”  
“Okay...” she responded.

And so we did. The place Alphys took us to started in Waterfall. It was a path made out of bridges and islands standing out of a glowing water pool. Giant blue flowers were blooming in various places. Needless to say, it looked beautiful.

“This pool of water is full of fluorescent plants,” Alphys explained “and it’s a part of this place’s charm. The flowers are magical too.”

“It looks like everything down here is magical,” Alice said in amazement. “The places, the people… magic...”

“Yeah, magic is pretty magical.” The three of us laughed.

We approached an area with an amazing view. A grey palace with a blue roof was standing in the distance, separated with us by a few kilometers of blue crystallized floor.

“See this castle?” Alphys began.

“The Royal Palace?” I guessed.

“The thing is, that’s not it. The Royal Palace is in an entirely other direction. If you looked at it from such a distance, you would have seen the Core and bright orange light coming from the lava.”

“Then what’s this castle?”

“We don’t know. A part of the Barrier goes through the Underground and separates us from it. It’s transparent in this place, so you don’t see it, but it’s there.”

That was a big surprise.

“Why? Wasn’t the Barrier supposed to shine a bright white light?” Alphys told me about that once.

“Yes, but for some reason, the castle absorbs all of the nearby light.”

“Wait...” An idea occurred to me. “Alphys, can a human and a monster cross the Barrier together? Like, while holding hands or something like that?”

“Well...” She stopped to think. “Technically, yes, and they don’t need to hold hands. When its magic flow is interrupted, it will let anything and everything through, but… please don’t let any monster go to the surface now. E-everyone’s opinion on humans is really bad, a-and when we start a war, they’ll most probably destroy us.”

“What? No, I wasn’t planning on that! I just thought that the three of us could go to that castle together. You know, explore, find out more, that stuff. How about that?”

“Well… If you want, it’ll be faster if we fly” Alice responded.

“But you Alphys doesn’t have wings, right?”

“Actually, I do” the scientist flushed.

“Really? Why haven’t you told us before?”

“That’s because… O-okay, I’ll show you. But please don’t laugh.” Alphys opened two pockets on her lab coat’s back I haven’t noticed before, fought with the material for a moment, and outstretched… two normal-sized yellow wings.

“And what’s supposed to be wrong with them?” Alice asked.

“T-they’re supposed to be thicker, a-and smaller, and… Don’t you really see anything wrong?”

“No, they seem perfectly fine. Why?”

“Well, they look different than my parents’, and the worst part is that I can fly with them!”

“Why the hell would that be bad?”

“T-they’re supposed to help with running, not flying! I...”

“All monsters vary, don’t they?” I asked.

“Y-yeah, but...”

“Then there’s nothing wrong with the fact that you do. You don’t have to use them often if you don’t like them, but they’re your wings. It’s an important part of you, and you should remember that.”

She seemed a little more confident. “Okay, I’ll fly. Just p-please wait for me if I’m not fast enough, I haven’t practiced in a long time.”

“That’s fine.”

And so we got off. Alphys’ flight was really insecure and slow, but Alice helped her with her magic. About thirty seconds after starting I felt a weird wave of resistance like I was trying to swim against the flow of a river. I saw that it affected Alphys and Alice too, but eventually, it faded. I looked behind myself; the place we were in earlier had disappeared, and a wall of darkness stood in its stead.

 

 

After about five minutes we arrived at the castle. As we explored it, we found a few weird-looking monsters; some were shaped like jigsaw pieces, some like chess pawns, and one looked like a red checker with a dog face. In the castle itself walls were mostly black, like everything in that place. We encountered someone who, upon noticing us, asked “Hello! Are you perhaps new to this place?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

“I’ve never encountered someone looking like you. Where are you from?”

“Outside of the…” I realized that mentioning coming out of the Barrier would raise questions on how we did it and decided not to reveal that fact. “From pretty far away. Outside of this town.”

“Oh! Then I should probably greet you. Welcome! This is the Dark Castle. And I’m Ralsei, one of its princes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...to insert Deltarune into the plot!  
> I'm going with the idea that this fic is happening after chapter 1 of Deltarune, and if you're reading this in the future when the full game's released, ignore stuff that wasn't in the demo. And if you haven't played the demo - do it now!  
> (Unless you're my mom who falls asleep after five minutes of playing.)  
> Also, the part with Alphys' wings is pretty funny, because over ten chapters ago she was the one telling Cade that his wings are perfectly normal and that no one would see them as weird.


	19. Chapter 19: A Rude Interruption

“So what is this place?” I asked Ralsei. “It looks rather… dark.”

Ralsei laughed at those words. “Just like every single place in the Dark World, yes. The kingdom is quite dark.”

I have heard many monsters call the Underground different names. A prison, everyone. A refuge, certain war veterans. But this term was new to me.

“The Dark World? Do you mean the Underground?”

Ralsei looked rather surprised after hearing that question. “We’re not geographically under the Light World if that’s what you’re asking about, although that theory is common. I have never heard the term ‘Underground’ in this context.”

“But… You do know about the Barrier, right?”

“No, what’s that?”

I exchanged looks with Alice and Alphys. The people here saw the magical barrier as a wall of darkness, and even if anybody tried to enter it, they would not return to tell the rest.

“This… wall uH^5wjOPL” I stopped as my words became garbled. I could not understand any of what I said.

The space between me and Ralsei suddenly began to shift, and it was ripped apart to reveal something… dark. Even darker than the Kingdom we were in, darker than what one sees when he closes his eyes. It was just... a void.

Then the most hideous person I’ve ever seen peeked out of the crack. He was cloaked in a dark substance, looking like some sort of animated liquid. It looked like ferrofluid, darkness, and water all at the same time. His face was pale white, looking like stone with cracks reaching between his upper lip to the right eye, and his lower lip to his chin.

“I did not expect that you would be crafty enough to visit this place, but I should have since my blood runs in your veins.” His voice was the first position on my Voices I Don’t Want To Hear list. Yes, you guessed it. Walter.

“Unfortunately, I cannot allow further shifts between realities. I barely stand that puny human with his dinosaur friend crossing them on a daily basis. You cannot imagine how much of a headache your current escapade is giving me.”

“Who’s this guy?” Alice asked.

“That’s… kinda my dad” I explained. Then I noticed that Alphys was missing.

“I sent your yellow host back to my former workplace since I don’t need bystanders to see you become the past president of the Being Alive club. Don’t worry, she’ll forget you both in no time.”

Great. Now he was about to kill me.

A giant animal skull, much like the ones Sans could summon, appeared in the air. This one looked more badass and was thrice as big. It slowly opened its jaw and shot out a deadly white beam.

I would have died. I and Alice would have been completely erased from existence, along with a big chunk of dirt, if not for one person.

That person was a human with blue skin and a red scarf, with a sword attached to his belt and a huge shield he covered me and Alice with. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing; he has single-handedly repelled a blaster beam.

“Kris! Susie! You’re here!” I heard Ralsei exclaim.

“You bet! When there’s someone to beat the crap out of, we’re the best!” The person to say this wasn’t my protector; it was a metal-looking dinosaur lady with purple skin and a huge ax in her hands, standing next to him. Susie, I guessed. Then the human must have been Kris.

“Speak of the devil” Walter muttered, annoyed. He has already come out of the crack. “You have annoyed me for the last ti-”

“Stop monologuing, fucker!” Susie shouted, slamming my father with an ax. That caught him off-guard; he fell head down into the void he just climbed out of.

I ran up to the weird space-time hole. If I managed to close it somehow, Walter might not be able to return. True, he might be able to just reappear somewhere else. But this was the only hope I had.

I grabbed the edges of the crack; thankfully they felt like solid things. I tried squeezing them together, but it was really hard to move them.

“Kris!” Susie yelled. “Duct tape! And you there, gimme that.”

She ran up to me, pushed me away and forced the borders of the anomaly together. She turned out to be strong enough to do it, though not without effort. ‘Duct tape?’ I thought. Kris reached into his backpack and pulled out a roll of said object. He threw it to me.

“Don’t stand there! Do something!” the monster yelled.

“I.. okay.” As weird as it might sound, I covered the space-time crack with duct tape. It felt like I was working with a rope, one that’s tied to an escaping motorcycle. I know that’s a weird comparison, but the situation wasn’t ordinary either.

When I was finished, Susie let go. Ralsei approached the anomaly.

“Get back” he ordered.

The monster began emitting gold light like he was a lantern. The light floated in the jammed crack’s direction and sunk into the tape. I could hear Walter scream from inside, but he apparently couldn’t get out. The hole shook for the last time and then disappeared. The tape fell down on the ground.

“Now we can talk” Ralsei stated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now they have time to talk.  
> Also: I bet that you haven't read this far. If you have, prove me wrong in the comments! Oh, and tell me what you think while you're at it. Seriously, this work has four times more chapters than honest comments! I'm actually quite depressed!


	20. Chapter 21: Some Explanation I Guess

Ralsei led us to the castle’s throne room. There, he brought us a few chairs and a table, which he positioned near the throne. The room was, like everything here, made out of dark material of unknown origin. The throne was obviously king-sized but looked strangely unfit for the person who was sitting on it: a smiling kid with blue hair and covered eyes. His smile looked like Sans’.

“Toothpaste Boy! You’re back! Who’s that with you?” He pointed at me, and I introduced myself.

“I’m Cade. And you’re…?”

“He is the King of the Dark Kingdom, Lancer the first. Thou shouldest refer to him with the words ‘Your Majesty.’” Yet another person entered the room. He strangely reminded my dad in his weird void form, but he was made out of blue goop instead of black goop; his face wasn’t stone, and he smiled in a more friendly way. “And I am Rouxls Kaard, his Duke of Puzzles.”

“Yeah, yeah, just call me Lancer. Sounds WAY better than some ‘majesty’ thing.”

“So what brings you here?” Ralsei asked.

“Curiosity” Alice explained. “We saw this castle for the first time and decided to check it out, and arrived at this dark place.”

“What does thou meaneth by ‘for the first time’? This castle is visible from all places in the Dark World!” Rouxls exclaimed.

“We’re not from the Dark World. We came in through the Barrier.”

“The… what?” No one – neither Kris, Ralsei, Susie, Lancer or Rouxls seemed to be familiar with this term.

“Well, you see it as a wall of darkness east from here.”

“There’s no sun in the Dark World, so there’s no east.”

“Umm, that direction.” I pointed to where we came from. Everyone looked through a window, only to discover what I mentioned: a wall of darkness.

“We didn’t even know that there is something behind!” Ralsei shouted. “Everyone thought there’s just a void.”

“Well, no. Behind is the Underground, a place where all monsters are imprisoned.”

“The hell are you talking about?” Susie spoke up. “I’ve lived in the Light World my entire life and all monsters are just as free as humans. Kris would confirm if he wasn’t so quiet all the time.” Kris nodded, though.

“Wait. Time out. I think that we all need to get some definitions straight” I stated. “First, what do you mean by Light and Dark World?”

“The Dark World is the place we’re in now. The stars don’t shine here, and it’s a place where all Darkners, like me, Lancer or Rouxls Kaard live. The Light World has a blue ceiling called ‘sky’ instead of darkness, as I heard, and the main source of light is a star called the Sun, which shines during the day and hides at night. I’ve never been there myself, but the only way to get there is through a Dark Fountain, and a Lightner is required to go there. Monsters and humans all live in the Light World, and therefore are all lightners.”

It was my turn to talk. “I know that there’s another way. The Light World is divided into the Underground, where monsters live, and the surface, home of all humans, separated by the Barrier, a spell that allows anyone to go underground, but only someone with at least one human and one monster soul to escape. To destroy it, seven souls are required. Which are hard to get, since no one on the Surface knows about the Underground. And that’s why what Susie said doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve been on the Surface, and haven’t met a single monster. That’s a long story.”

“Wait. We can prove it.” Susie spoke up. “I and Kris will try to get the seven of us into the Light World.”

Lancer gasped. “Really? I need to be there!”

“Yep, you will,” Susie confirmed. “Now come on.”

She led us to a gallery behind the throne room, which led to a fountain of black liquid. When Kris approached it, it started shining with colors. We all stepped inside at the same time. I didn’t feel anything in particular, only that I started falling. The weird thing was that I fell… Upwards. Upwards, upwards, until I smashed into some ceiling and fell normally: on the floor. And the floor was…

“We’re in the unused classroom of our school” Susie announced. “It used to be full of messy board games, but we decided to tidy it so that we don’t step on legos after landing here. Come on, through the window. We can’t let anyone see you guys like that.”

When I looked at her, she was slightly changed. Everyone except me and Alice was. Susie was wearing a purple jacket instead of spiky clothes, and her skin was noticeably darker. Kris’ skin has completely changed, he was no longer a blue human kid, but a regular human kid. Instead of armor, he now wore regular clothes. Ralsei has changed the most, since instead of a green robe and a wizard hat he wore a green sweater, his fur wasn’t completely covered with his hat, and therefore no longer was black. What I was looking at now was a white fluffy boy with glasses.

Rouxls Kaard was… not really changed, but one thing that stood out most was the lack of his duke clothes, replaced with blue clothes. And Lancer’s eyes were no longer covered by his now slightly lighter blue hair.

“Who cares!” He shouted. “Let’s go exploring!”

And with these words, he jumped out through the window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoever thinks they're sneaky by not leaving comments, you can come out now, I have uncovered your lies. Eh, who am I kidding. No one's reading more than the first chapter anyway.


	21. Chapter 21: One Sans, Two Sans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've got myself Grammarly, and I''m correcting previous chapters. Thanks for all of the support you guys gave me. Rouxls speech will now be slightly better.

As soon as Ralsei and other Darkners left the school, they were completely blinded by the sun.

“Ow! What… It’s so...”

“Bright, isn’t it?” I finished. “I almost forgot what it’s like…”

“How is it possible that you and Alice were here before?” Susie asked.

“A long story. What’s this town called?”

“Ebott.” I felt my legs freeze.

Long ago I googled how many towns in Poland were called Ebott, out of curiosity. Result: one. One freaking town. And I was pretty damn sure that there was no mountain nearby.

“CAN THOU STOPETH THINE POINTLESS CONVERSATIONS AND HELP ME WITH THE PROGRESSING BLINDNESS OF MINE?!” We heard Rouxls scream.

“Oh dear, I-I’m so sorry, I forgot!” Ralsei shouted. “Cover him, someone! Cover his body!”

Without thinking, I quickly materialized a large sheet of white, non-transparent material above Rouxls. It fell onto his body, covering him entirely.

“What was that about?” Alice asked Ralsei.

“A week ago I researched the bodies of various Darkners as a part of my study, and he was no exception. It turned out that his eyes are simply decoration, and that he sees with his whole body due to the substance he is made of. Being exposed to sunlight must have been a real pain.”

“So it looks like I’ll need to think of a long-term solution… Duke Rouxls, could you please T-pose?”

“Why would I taketh any poses, Worm?” Apparently, he called other people worms when he got annoyed.

“Please, I’m just going to transform your cover, and I need you to stay still.” When he reluctantly obeyed, I changed the sheet’s shape to one that looked like a full-body suit, but left a few small holes in various places, so that he could see. “How’s that?”

“My vision is a bit blurry, but I am not blinded.”

“You’ll have to go with that.”

We started walking away from the school. The town looked regular; a bar, a few houses, even a pizzeria (or pezzeria, as the sign spelled) except one small detail: instead of humans, its population was only monsters. The worst part is, not just any monsters. I could clearly see Bratty and Catty standing in front of someone’s houses, and a few others that I recognized. What were they doing here?

“I don’t think you guys can stay here for long, we have to finish a project for tomorrow’s physics class,” Susie said.

“We can help” I offered. “Physics is my favorite subject, and I’m sure Ralsei will be glad to help. He did research about darkners, so he must know some stuff.”

“Yeah!” The fluffy boy confirmed.

“Thanks, but no. Our teacher knows we’re bad at obeying the laws of physics, let alone making projects about them. Alphys will know something’s up.”

I nearly choked on my own tongue. A few months in the dragon form and I still didn’t get used to a different tongue. Dammit, Cade.

“Alphys? As in ‘a yellow lizard Royal Scientist Alphys’?” 

“She’s no scientist, but how’d you know she was a lizard?”

“I just, um, had a feeling.” Something was really wrong here.

We were just walking close to a pub when I noticed another familiar face. Sans was standing in front of the door. As soon as he spotted me, his left eye turned blue. He raised his hand and used a gravity attack, the same one he used when we first met.

“Sans!” I yelled, as my back got pinned to a tree. “Aw man!”

“so we back in the town, huh?” His voice was cold. Cold like he wasn’t speaking to me, but to…

“i thought you knew better than to return here, Walter.”

“Sans, it’s not him, it’s me. Cade. Don’t you really remember?”

[They will forget you in no time] Father’s voice resonated in my head. Was that what he meant? He must have erased me and Alice from our friends’ memories. Well crap.

“I’m not your father. Can we just talk?”

“you have exactly sixty seconds to explain yourself.”

A sudden thought occurred to me. What if this wasn’t actually Sans? Or at least the Sans I know…?

“Okay, let me make a phone call.” I pulled out my phone, the monster one. Alphys once told me that monster phones work quite differently than human ones. It involved some quantum physics stuff that was total black magic to me, but it resembled Sans’ shortcut stuff; you could call someone no matter where you were. And that means…

“sup?” I heard Sans’ voice and exhaled, relieved. “Hey, can you shortcut to me real quick?” I asked.

“alright, I can do that.” Next to the Sans standing in front of me, I saw another Sans appear out of nowhere. He squinted as the sunlight flew through his eyelids (wait, how does a skeleton squint?), but his eyes opened wide when he looked around. Just like in his clone’s case his eye lights disappeared, he turned to me and spoke “you have exactly sixty seconds to explain yourself.”

I now had exactly one hundred and twenty seconds. Now we're getting somewhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that's not how math works cade


	22. Chapter 22: I Won't Type A Chapter Name, That Would Spoil It :3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO thankful for the comments you guys left. Who would think that adding a note to the first chapter would change so much? Okay, looking back at it I have to admit that seeing just the first chapter would be a little discouraging. Like, with no Undertale characters or places except the name Ebott.

“And that’s how we got here” I finished. Both Sanses were looking at each other with uncertainty. Finally Sans A (as we decided to call the sans I knew before) said something totally embarassing.

“i’m a stupid doodoo butt.”

Sans B looked at him with understanding and replied “i’m a legendary fartmaster.”

“Should I knoweth something that I don’t?” asked Rouxls.

“nah, these are just a bunch of my passwords” one of them said. “but not to my phone, forgetabouddit” he added, seeing Susie’s expression.

“but that doesnt explain why I have a clone. or the guy i call my clone has.”

“Everything’s pretty obvious” Susie replied. “Cade and Alice appeared out of nowhere, Kris took the band to the Light World, and then Cade pulled out his phone and cloned Sans.”

“Hey, I didn’t clone him. I knew him since a few months ago, and I called him to come over.”

“And how did he do that?”

“I dunno, ask him.”

She looked at Sans, who just frowned.

“mmmmmmagic.”

“Okay, I take my question back.”

“Can monsters really do that?” Ralsei asked out of the blue. “I examined many Darkners and none could use magic this way. There were a few similar spells, like Rouxls’ ‘appearification’ as he calls it...”

“Spells? Isn’t that just using magic?” Alice asked. “I once heard Alphys talk about them.”

No, spells are different. Every monster can use a given spell, if they have seen its glyph. Glyph is a symbol that, once looked at with the intent to learn, teaches someone a spell, or some information. They can then forget the glyph, but they never forget a spell, unless they want to. Drawing them has certain rules and, from what Kris told me, is much like programming.” Everyone looked really surprised by the fact that Kris could speak. “Spells are however affected with someone’s magic type. For example, someone can learn a spell that shoots an arrow, but if they use fire magic, the arrow will probably be burning. A frost magic user’s arrow will be likely made out of ice. Glyphs are however hard to obtain and even harder to design. I’m lucky enough to have stumbled upon a glyph teaching the glythscribing rules.”

“Really?!” Alice exclaimed. “Do you have it here?”

“Yes, I always carry it with me. Do you want to see it?”

“I can? Really?” Alice looked really excited. Come to think of it, everyone was.

“Sure. Take a look!” He unzipped a pocket in shape of a heart on her jacket. Inside was a piece of paper with some kind of text and a weird symbol. I didn’t even read the text; it has been somehow engraved in my mind. Oh crap. Ralsei wasn’t kidding when he said it was difficult. While drawing a glyph, circles were what “magazined” someone’s magic; there was always one circle in the middle, which symbolized the soul. Then there were curves and arrows that were like magic streams used to channel energy between circles, and every little detail on an arrow, like how bent or long it was, affected the way magic flowing through was transformed. Super advanced shapes (like squares and triangles) were just too complicated to explain. I could write a whole book on each one of them, but it would be too hard to read it. Also, the glyph would have to be charged by magic, the exact amount that was required by the spell it taught. If it taught information, it would depend on the amount of knowledge it showed.

I also understood the glyph Ralsei showed me; it was a glyph that permanently and quickly taught someone the information written above Unless they wanted to forget it, that is.

“This thing is EPIC!” Susie yelled. “Damn making glyphs; if I kept using only the one you just showed me, I would get straight A’s on all of my exams!”

“This is indeed a great discovery” Rouxls nodded.

“Yeah! But back to what I was saying. Rouxls can use a spell that makes himself or something teleport somewhere else in a flash of light, but even that didn’t let him enter the Light World. How could your Sans make it?”

“That is something I would like to know myself” a voice behind us spoke.

I turned around and saw a man fully covered in dark, spiky armor. “It seems like I can only delay my job so far. I kept telling myself that there is no need to separate the worlds, that no one can go through the Barrier anyway. But it seems that I have been wrong.”

“You mean the Dark and the Light World?”

“No. As you may have noticed, there are two skeletons named Sans standing in front of me. Do you really think that it is a mere coincidence?”

“And who exactly are you?” Alice asked.

“I am called The Knight. And your group” he pointed to me, Alice and Sans from my universe “will never see this world again.”

He grabbed a giant sword attached to his back and swung it in the air. It was the last thing I saw before being surrounded by darkness.

I blinked, and suddenly realized that I’m in Waterfall again, in the exact place we crossed the barrier. Alice and Sans were there too.

I tried to go back into the Dark World.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I wanted to name this chapter "A Rude Cliffhanger", but that would spoil it ;)


	23. Chapter 23: First Memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this chapter is really short, I know. But it partly explains Cade's PTSD, and what happened nine years ago...

//Around nine years ago//

Cade and the other kids were playing together. Running around trees, pretending to be superheroes, even climbing some rocks. It looked cute to a stranger, but they completely lost themselves in the fun.

One of his friends climbed a giant – two meter tall – rock, and to everyone’s awe, jumped down and didn’t hurt himself.

“I can do that too!” Six year old Cade yelled.

“Really? No, you’re not that strong” one of the others stated.

“Look!” He found an ever bigger rock. This one was nearly twice as big. Cade began climbing.

“You’re going to hurt yourself!” The ex-master of jumping down from rocks shouted. Cade didn’t listen, of course. He was nearly on the top – he really wanted to impress his friends. Mom told him not to show them to anyone, but it wouldn’t hurt if he did it just once.

Right?

He was already on top, looking down onto the ground and the other kids that were discouraging him from jumping. Cade ignored them, of course.

He shook off his coat and sprouted his wings, jumping at the same time. It felt great. For three seconds of glory he was tearing through the air. Then he landed on his face.

Cade lifted himself up, and felt sharp pain on his shoulder. Then on his back. Then on his left wing.

“Ow!” He shouted, turning around only to see his friends, now throwing rocks at him angrily.

“Monster!” One of them shouted. “You… bad creature!”

Cade didn’t listen, as he burst in tears and ran home.

He never took his coat off again.


	24. Chapter 24: Operation SBP

Sans shortcutted us to Alphys’ lab. For a moment I was worried that she wouldn’t remember us at all. Walter sure knows how to mess with someone’s head. But my worries disappeared as the lights turned on, and Alphys rushed to hug us.  
“I-I… I was worried that I l-lost you...” she said through tears.

“It’s okay, we’re here, it’s okay… we’re fine...” Alice calmed her down.

“W-what happened there?” she asked.

//And they explained everything to Alphys without dramatically raising this chapter’s word count.//

“Say, Alphys… Have you seen any glyphs in your life?” Alice asked out of the blue.

“Y-yes, but n-not many. The techniques of glyphscribing have been lost a long time ago. M-monsters thought they were too hard to make, and didn’t really pay off, so they just… stopped making them. The ones I have are from well before 1800 AD. Why ask?”

“No reason at all.” Alice smiled mysteriously.

“I think I have an idea how to play this… event a week from now” she whispered to me.

//A week later, because this story needs a time skip.//

Alice, Undyne, Sans and his tall brother as well as a few carefully chosen visitors were on their positions. The light was off. Everything was prepared, and we were at the fifth stage of our plan: double- and triple-check everything.

“The target has left the Core and is heading in our direction” I informed Alice. She nodded.

“Good. Are the cannons ready?”

“Locked and loaded.”

“Sans, Undyne, the support?”

“Check.”

“Papyrus?”

“THE MAIN MEAL PREPARED.” Sans’ brother’s voice was remarkably loud even when he was whispering.

“Great. All set for the Operation SBP.”

We waited in silence, only interrupted by my continuous distance reports. I’ve placed a magic tracker on our objective.

“Thirty meters.. twenty… prepare...” The lab door opened. Alice quickly turned the light on, everyone jumped from behind their covers and shouted “SURPRISE!”

I fired the confetti arsenal. Sans, Undyne and Papyrus sent a wave of magic projectiles upwards, destroying them just before they hit the ceiling. Operation SBP: Surprise Birthday Party started succesfully.

“O-oh my… You guys… Y-you didn’t have to...” Alphys looked at her surprise, tears of happiness in her eyes.

“Hey, you don’t turn twenty every day!” Alice exclaimed. “Come on, we’ve got a table full of snacks prepared!”

The table was indeed snacked fully. Its contents were mostly chips, candies and other party foods. Various monsters were already sitting there, all closer or further friends of Alphys. Her close family was also there. We all talked with each other while eating. Alphys was chattering with Undyne about “nerdy crap”, as the latter called it. Anime, manga and eventually super advanced research that Alphys kept going on and on about and Undyne didn’t understand at all, but was happy to see her friend talk about.

After the meal Alphys went to unpack her gifts. The first one was from Sans. As soon as she unpacked it, everyone muttered something that could be interpreted as “Oh no, he didn’t...” and Undyne’s face went completely red. And that’s because Sans’ gift was a full sized Undyne body pillow.

“Honey, you aren’t going to sleep with that, are you?” Alphys’ mother asked suspiciously.

“N-no, of course not, I-I’ll just put it in my bed… I mean, s-storage!!!” She grabbed the pillow and ran into her bedroom’s direction.

“She’s going to sleep with it” I whispered.

“damn, she didn’t even look at the other side” Sans joked. Undyne looked at him with disgust.

“I dunno, I prefer the original” Alphys’ brother’s words were greeted with even greater disgust.

“WHAT’S ON THE OTHER SIDE?” Papyrus asked curiously.

“better not ask that question, bro.”

“WHY?”

“that question too.”

“WH- OKAY.”

“O-okay, which one’s next?” Alphys asked.

The next presents were more tactful. Her family got her a science book. Something about dimensional magic principles. Come to think of it, Alphys did mention that one of her projects included large amounts of it. The next gift was a golden bone from Papyrus. I didn’t know what Alphys was supposed to do with that, but she politely thanked anyway. Undyne got her one of her magic spears. That one was quite different from her regular attacks, it was decorated to resemble an anime weapon.

Then she began unpacking a gift from me and Alphys. She gasped as soon as she noticed what it was: all anime CDs that got recently released. Senko-san, Shield Hero, Demon Slayer – it was all there.

“Cool! Where did you guys get that stuff? It’s completely intact!” Undyne asked.

“Ssh, that’s a secret” I silenced her. Truth to be told, I asked my mom to buy all of the CDs and throw them down here in a cardboard-reinforced package, which was previously tested by her a few times. Me, Alphys and mom located a crack in the mountain that led to Waterfall’s garbage dump, and figured out a way of packing stuff to make it fallproof.

“That’s not all – look at this envelope at the bottom. Just don’t let anyone else see it. Sorry, guys.”

She opened it, and saw the same glyph that Ralsei showed us – a glyph teaching the glyphscribing rules.

“Oh my – where did you get it? I thought it was lost…”

“Yeah, no. Well, kinda.”

“Aww c’mon, show us!” Undyne begged.

“ain’t happening. that would **rune** the gift.” I told Sans about what we are going to give Alphys a few days before.

“WHY DO I GET THE FEELING THAT YOU JUST SAID A PUN?” Papyrus asked suspiciously.

“i don’t know what you’re talking about, care to **spell** it out for me?” Yeah, his puns were terrible.

The party ended quietly, with everyone going home around 9 PM. When it was just me, Alice and Alphys, she asked “Seriously, where did you get that?”

“Ralsei showed us that in the Dark World.”

“So they still have the glyphs there… I can’t wait to try that out.”

“One thing’s sure. You’re now going to spend many hours on your ‘nerdy crap’.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your daily dose of birthdey has been delivered, have a nice day:3


	25. Chapter 25: The King's Visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another non-plot-related comic relief chapter! The next one will have more plot, I promise. As for the chapter uploading schedule, I'll try to update every day, around 8-10 PM Polish time. That's 1-3 PM in USA. I may sometimes post early, around noon at my place, which is very early for all Americans. So check when you can!

We were all nervous; Alphys tried to hide it, and it was the easiest for her. She has gone through it already.

Why? Because the Monster King’s visit was scheduled for today.

Once in every three months, King Asgore would visit the Lab to see how much progress his Royal Scientist has recently made. These visits – as Alphys told us – were mostly her showing him around all of her recent inventions and projects. Then Asgore would ask her a few questions about what she presented, and they would discuss her eventual pay changes. Although that didn’t happen very often.

“D-don’t worry, h-he’s a really nice guy! A-and there’s absolutely no way for him to find out about your origins...” Alphys tried to calm us down.

“Then what are you so nervous about?” I asked.

“You know, I found some of the fanfiction she writes...” Alice smiled “… and I think I know a veeeery probable reason...”

“T-that’s private!” She shouted.

“But you’re publishing it on the Undernet, aren’t you?”

“F-fanfiction is not meant to be read by s-someone who knows the author! I-it’s like talking about how much t-they pay you with your co-workers, i-it brings nothing but t-trouble!”

That meant she used to have a total crush on him. Used to, because now she’s all about Undyne. I’ve seen her sleep with the pillow from Sans. Flipped to the other side. There are things you can’t unsee.

Around five minutes ago the King arrived. He was dressed in casual clothes: a flower-patterned shirt and red shorts. He wasn’t even wearing a crown. If Alphys hadn’t told me about his scheduled visit, I would have thought he’s a regular monster. Well, many authorities in the Underground weren’t strict at all when it came to formalities.

Other than that, he looked like a… goat. White fur, floppy ears, long curved horns and a big smile gave him a cheerful and somewhat goofy look.

“Howdy Alphys!” He greeted the scientist.

“Um… hi, I mean… hello… good… morning, K-King Asgore!” She stuttered. “W-would you l-like some, um… tea?”

“Some golden flower tea would be great, thank you.”

While Alphys was making the tea, he turned to us two.

“So you two must be Alice and Cade, am I right?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“No need to be so formal, you can just call me Asgore. Or King Asgore, if you prefer. For some reason people call me that more often.” He glanced at Alphys.

“Yeah, she’s the nervous type” I replied. He seemed to emit a relaxing aura whenever he was around, and that was probably why it was so easy for me to talk to him.

Alphys poured each of us a cup of tea and sat down, shaking. I could understand her tension.

Thankfully this quadrant she had an ace up her sleeve.

“A-As for my research, I have been searching for old runes, and I found this.” She showed Asgore the glyph Alphys made for her. His eyes opened wide. “That’s a copy Alice helped me with, she’s good at calligraphy.”

“Alphys, that’s wonderful! We have waited so long to rediscover the art of glyphscribing. I’m really glad to have you around.”

We couldn’t of course tell him the true story.

Telling the true story = questions about the Dark World.

Questions about the Dark World = questions about crossing the Barrier.

And that would lead to revealing who I really am.

She then took him to the bottom lab, talking about her other breakthroughs and inventions. She forgot to turn the big lab monitor off, so I could hear all she was talking about through the audio-video feeds from lab cameras. Her greatest accomplishments included highly increasing dimensional storage effectiveness, creating a brand new way to store magic energy, and cracking the Nintendo 64 system. Now, thanks to her research, all of the Underground could play Mario in 3D.

They returned shortly after.

“Well Alphys, seeing your achievements, I decided to increase your monthly pay by twenty percent.”

She squealed. “Omigosh King Asgore thank you you didn’t have to!!!”

“It’s alright. You earned it, and you have two more mouths to feed after all. And it was your birthday a few days ago, right? I’m going to hire a glyphscribing team to experiment with what you showed me. Could I please have that copy? I need to show it to them.”

“O-of course!” She handed him the paper.

“Thank you. And when you start making these fancy consoles, I’d like to have one of them. If that’s alright.”

“I-It’s fine! I was g-going to send you one a-after all… Umm, I mean...” She covered her mouth, and the king smiled.

“Well, that is all. I’ll be leaving now – take care!”

When he left the Lab, I could see Alphys blush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roses are red,  
> Violers are underrated,  
> Comments and constructive criticism are highly appreciated!


	26. Chapter 26: No Ideas For Plot? Just Insert Another Human!

“Alice! Cade! W-wake up!” I heard Alphys shout. “W-we’re in danger!”  
I slowly lifted myself from my bed. “What is it?”  
“A-A human has fallen down, and he’s shooting at everyone with a pistol! Y-you must find cover!”  
“WHAT?!” I shouted. “Where are they?”  
“S-still at Snowdin. T-Two monsters are injured, for now they’re fighting him...”  
“Where’s the chip?”  
“I-In the bottom lab, but… it’s still a prototype…”  
“I don’t care!” I shouted. “People are gonna die if I don’t do something!”  
“Y-you can’t! I-I’ve sent Undyne...”  
“Undyne won’t do shit if he has a gun!”  
“S-sorry, Cade” she said, “b-but the bottom lab is locked. A-and the lab main door. Y-you’re not going anywhere.”  
“Don’t underestimate me!” I locked her out of the room with a magic wall.  
Over the sound of her shouting and attacking the obstacle, I concentrated. That was a little trick me and Sans have been practicing lately. Since we both had DNA of W.D.Gaster, in one way or another, our souls were connected in a special way. I reached out to his soul, and called his name.  
“you there? waddya want?”  
“I need your magic.”  
“sure. knock yourself out.” Sans’ magic reserves have opened to me. Now, both of us could use each other’s magic type, although in a slightly changed way.  
I took a quick shortcut to the bottom lab. To do that, I had to visualize a logical way for myself to teleport, or magic wouldn’t let me. Too many physics lessons. I created a small watch on my left hand, and imagined it as a super top-secret device that would let me teleport. It worked, surprisingly. My brain is way too easy to cheat.  
The chip was on a nearby table. I recognized it because it was similar to Undyne’s, although this one was triangle-shaped. Nice design. I created an opening in my new watch, deciding to put it there. And I warped away to Snowdin.  
The cold hit me immediately. A blizzard raged, forbidding the usage of my wings.  
I heard gunshots and followed. Where the guns were, the human was.  
The snow was hitting my face. Every step was hard.  
But I was WAY too determined for that.  
I finally found him. A cowboy hat, a leather jacket, and a revolver. I recognized him from my town.  
“YOU KILLED HER!” He screamed. “IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!”  
“Enough!” I wrapped him up in magical chains. “Stop killing people and listen!”  
“You deserve that! You killed Victoria!” He pointed his gun at me and fired.  
I felt sharp pain in my left wing. When I looked, there was a glaring hole. Right. His gun. A simple magic attack fixed that, as his revolver – Peacekeeper if I’m right – fell uselessly on the floor.  
I created four soundproof walls and a roof around us. The blizzard stopped. No one could hear us now.  
“You’re Jake, Victoria’s boyfriend. Am I right?” I asked.  
“How the hell do you know that?!”  
“If you’re looking the guilty one, then I’m at fault. She came here looking for me.”  
“No, that’s impossible! She was looking for her brother.”  
“Right. And he came here to find me.”  
“Cade? Cade was a human, dumbass.”  
“Emphasis on WAS.”  
“You aren’t going to tell me that a human turned into a dragon.”  
“Would you believe if I told you he had wings?”  
Jake shut up. He was in the town square when I forgot my coat.  
“Yeah, I know that sounds weird. But hear me out. She’s not dead.”  
“Really?” Hope returned onto his face.  
“Well, she temporarily is. But I have a way to revive her when the Barrier is broken.”  
“And how the hell are you gonna do that?”  
“Watch and learn.” I repeated the process that already happened twice. His new body stared, dumbfounded, as the original fell to the floor.  
“That didn’t explain anything.”  
“When we’re free, I’m gonna shove your soul into the original.”  
“Wait, so now I’m gonna die?”  
“Wait, so you’ve shot countless monsters and now you’re saying you don’t wanna die?”  
He sighed. “Well, I guess I deserve it.”  
“It’s alright, at this rate it’s just gonna be like prison for a few months. Inside a glass jar. And who knows, maybe they’ll put your jar next to Victoria’s!”  
That was supposed to be a joke, but his face lit up anyway.  
“So don’t resist.”  
“Well, okay. I can do it for you guys’ freedom. No one I tried to shoot even thought about fighting back. If the monsterkind is really that kind… Well, I’ll be happy to die.”  
“Good. Don’t resist. Act like I imprisoned you by force.”  
I made a shell for his true body and shaped it like a snow poff. There were many of them around. Then I created handcuffs for him and retracted the walls.  
“FINALLY!” Undyne shouted. “I’VE BEEN ATTACKING THIS WALL FOR HOURS!”  
“Yeah, umm, sorry about that. I didn’t want him to shoot anyone.”  
“Dude, you’ve captured more humans than me by now” she grinned. “Consider joining the Royal Guard, won’t ya?”  
“Alright. Wait a minute…” I turned to Jake. “How many monsters did you kill?”  
He pretended to be angry, but replied “None. I have to practice my aim in the afterlife.”  
He probably wasn’t going to visit it anytime soon, but I didn’t say that around Undyne.  
“You humies really piss me off. At least you’re bad at everything, even being bad” she commented.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After realizing how badly I set up the story for what I wanted to do, I therefore announce: the original order humans fell into the Underground can go to hell. I've inserted Justice just after Bravery because the order of the souls in Photoshop Flowey's battle is not necessarily the order of appearing. Three done, four to go, and then, the REAL story will begin...  
> What? Did you think I was gonna stop there? Nah. As much as I love happy ends, I want to expand the story a little more.  
> 


	27. Chapter 27: Meeting Mother, Meeting Father

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That one turned out a bit too short. Sorry!

I was at Waterfall. At the garbage dump, specifically. I dialed my mom’s number and called.

She picked up. Her voice sounded strange – like she was running for her life.

“Cade, listen. Some creepy organization has cracked my phone calls and they’re now coming for me. I’m running away into the Underground.”

“What? No, wait – that’s a terrible idea! Every human that comes here is going to die!”

“Be at the Barrier. Buy some time, then do what you did to Caled and Victoria. Love you. Bye.”

And just like that, she hung up.

I spent two precious seconds on processing what just happened, then reached for Sans’ magic and shortcutted. My intended destination was the Core – I wasn’t inside the Castle before, so I couldn’t shortcut there. But Sans apparently was – his magic took me to a long corridor with giant windows and pillars. I rushed past it, past the gray walls of the castle, past the throne room and a very surprised Asgore, and stopped when I reached the Barrier.

“Time to go to work” I muttered.

Of course, I couldn’t leave mom to Asgore – that would ruin everything. Another magical wall to block his way. Then I saw her come out of the Barrier.

She looked exactly like I remembered her – she hadn’t aged a bit. Fatigue was visible in her eyes.

“Cade… huff… It’s you…”

“No time to explain. Come here.”

Asgore already started destroying the wall, but I was familiar with the process. It took me less then ten seconds to lock mom’s body inside a statue-like capsule and use Sans’ magic to warp it into the cellar, which was full of empty coffins. _Everyone who fell down into the Underground used to be here, but copies of their bodies disappeared._ _Each_ coffin had a soul engraved on its lid. Jade Gaster’s body belonged in the green one.

Her soul has been put into one of the glass jars hidden below the floor. Green for Kindness.

The wall behind me has been smashed to pieces with a red glowing trident. I saw Asgore looking directly at me, and the new soul.

“Where did you get this soul?” he asked.

I felt really stupid. “I don’t know, I came in and it just… was… here?”

“And now-” He was interrupted by a strange sound coming from the Barrier. I turned around and saw that its surface started cracking.

_Oh crap._

It opened, and a black hand reached out in my direction. _‘_ _Crap’_ , I only managed to think, as it grabbed me and dragged into the crack. Then the hand disappeared.

Darkness surrounded me. And then the darkness shaped itself like a living room. With one person sitting on a couch.

“Greetings, son” Walter said. “You are now inside the Barrier. Make yourself at home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's your weekly dose of cliffhangers.


	28. Chapter 28: Inside The Barrier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoah, the previous chapter left you hanging, didn't it? Also, I wanted to mention that the past few chapters have been written while I played Monopoly, so I may have been a little distracted. I dare you to find an error!

“Why did you drag me here?” I asked.

“For starters, you were always an unexpected variable in my plans” he began. “Out of stupid sentiment for my ‘biological son’ I have blurred my own vision, not realizing that you may become a serious threat to my plans” Walter said.

“That’s what we call ‘feelings’.”

“Don’t interrupt me. This is what I was talking about. You ruin everything I plan on doing or saying, just like a moment ago. Or with the soul of your mother.”

“What do you have against that?”

“Perhaps I need to make myself clear. You were the very reason humans actually started coming into the Underground.”

He was right, actually. Caled came here to look for me, Victoria – for him, Jake – for her, and my mother, because some men-in-black assaulted her due to my phone calls.

“You see, I live in the very Barrier now, created by seven members of different Soul Clans, including one of my ancestors. Thanks to his notes, I was able to access the very fabric of the Barrier. The space inside is fluid, and made entirely out of magic. And I can do anything while I’m inside, as long as it doesn’t alter the outside world.”

“Obviously, I don’t want the barrier to get destroyed. All I can see from here is the Underground, but we’re talking about the whole Underground. I can look at the situation from above, from bottom and from all sides, and even from the inside. When you left the Underground, a corrupt version of me chose to intervene.”

“Wait. So you’re telling me that there are different versions of you so that you can conveniently blame everything you did on someone else?”

“It’s true. Think back. Have I ever lied to you about something?”

When he put it like that, I realized it’s true. He may have hidden a few things. He may have not told the entire truth. But he has never lied to me, or anyone else. When there was something he didn’t want to reveal, he would just say that he doesn’t feel like talking about it.  
“So how many ‘versions’ do you have at the moment?”

“Three. First, the one you’re talking to. I prefer referring to myself as ‘Walter Alpha’, as I am the closest to what I have been before the split.”

“Second, Corrupt Walter. As there are many versions of the same people, there are also different universes. He has come from one that’s based on managing other AU’s, as they call them. His obsession is keeping ‘order’ between them. Which is either keeping them apart or destroying some of them, depending on how he sees fit. I make sure to watch out for him, and you should too.”

“And third, The Knight. Yes, he was me from another AU. That one has manifested after an experiment of mine, which has crashed the borders of two universes, and connected them in the very place a part of the Barrier lies now. Yes, I am talking about the Darkner AU, or as I call it, the Deltarune AU.”

I slowly inhaled. “And you’re telling me this because…? No, don’t answer that

“Then what are the ‘plans’ you were referring to?”

“Currently I am planning on staying alive as long as possible. Staying here, in the Barrier, is the best way to do this, as I do not age. Death is a permanent process, so it’s best to avoid it for now.”

“That’s… really scientific and primal at the same time. So you dragged me here, in order to prevent other humans from falling? How is that supposed to stop them?”

“I’m removing all factors I am unsure about. The view from here lets me predict everything based on what I see, but these predictions are immediately ruined as soon as something new appears. You have given me quite a headache with your impulsive decisions.”

“Why not just kill me then?”

“Death is irreversible. That’s one of the basic laws evolution has given us. And yet you broke that law. One, you may be useful. Two, I don’t kill when I don’t have to. And three… I’m sentimental.”

He did not look sentimental at all. He looked… wait, I didn’t even realize how he looked like right now. He looked dragon, and yet human. Imagine inserting his human form’s image into a graphics program, then pasting his dragon form on top, and increasing its transparency to fifty percent. And now imagine looking at him without seeing two weird ghost forms. Like seeing a solid object, that was two different things at once. It was like moving in four dimensions – unimaginable, but theoretically possible. I realized that my own hands looked that way.

“You are now both in your dragon and human form, for you have not crossed the barrier entirely. It’s the easiest way for you to transform at the moment.”

“Okay...”

“Oh, but where are my manners. I suppose you’re curious what’s happening to your friends right now. Come, I will show you” he said, and everything dissolved into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TiMe FoR yOuR dAiLy DoSe Of WeIrD cApS lOcK uSe!


	29. Chapter 29: The Vision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter again - I was hiking all day and then got distracted, sorry for that. Enjoy.

The darkness shaped into the Lab’s image. I could see Alphys and Alice sitting on the couch, and the door suddenly opening to reveal an infuriated Asgore.

“Cade has rushed into the Barrier’s room moments ago, somehow created a green soul, and disappeared. Care to explain, Alphys?”

“I-I… I don’t…” The monster stuttered.

“I will explain” Alice interrupted.

“Please.”

“I can’t lie anymore. Cade and I used to be human.”

Dead silence. I could hear every single sound coming from the Hotland’s lava behind the reinforced walls. I wanted to scream. I did. No one heard me.

“You don’t look like one to me” Asgore answered.

“The Barrier has transformed my body, but my soul stayed the way it was. Scan my soul, Alphys. I will prove it here and now.”

“B-But Alice...”

“I’m sorry for lying to you. You didn’t deserve it.”

‘ _NO!’_ I shouted. _‘He’ll kill you!’_

No one heard me.

Alphys grabbed a nearby scanner and pointed it at the fox. A cartoonish heart appeared on its small screen.

“I see” Asgore pronounced slowly. “So what do we do now?”

“Take my soul.”

‘ _NO! NO! NO!’_

“Use it to break the Barrier.”

‘ _NO!’_

“But when you do, please, don’t start another war. Try to make peace. There are over seven billion humans out there. You won’t stand a chance.”

Asgore just looked at her. After what felt like an hour of silence, he simply said “Come to the castle when you’re ready.”

‘ _please don’t do it please don’t please don’t PLEASE’_

She followed him without hesitation. “Goodbye, Alphys” she only said.

The vision blurred. I dropped to my knees.

“I knew that this will be quite a shock for you” Walter spoke.

“can someone die inside the barrier?” I cut him off.

“If you’re thinking about suicide, no. This is my realm. You can’t even die without my permission.”

“this is too much. i give up. i don’t want to live. i don’t want to suffer anymore.”

“Too bad. You have to.”

“why?”

“I don’t like suicide. I want to help.”

“how can you help me?”

“New goals. Find a way to resurrect her.”

“why not just die and join her?”

“Because lazy ways of thinking annoy me. No wonder I couldn’t stand Sans.”

“how can i work on that here?”

“I will provide you with the necessary equipment.” The room I was in shifted. I was now standing inside a laboratory with equipment like microscopes, vials, and different materials.

“Everything is an exact copy of a real item. Good luck with research” Walter said, and disappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gaster sure is cold. Hey, this fic needs some tragedy. Let's just let Cade get to work, alright? He's got a girlfriend to save.


	30. Chapter 30: Still Inside The Barrier

I stood there completely dumbfounded. How was I supposed to create something that’s going to resurrect Alice with just materials and scientific equipment? No human has done it on the surface.

I spotted a terrarium with a few rabbits. Oh. Great. I’m going to kill and revive animals. Yay me.

I took a soul scanner from a nearby shelf and set it to face one of the rabbits. A small white soul appeared in its chest. Fun fact, animal souls were white and ball-shaped. Slowly, I removed it from the body with my fingers. The body started behaving like a ragdoll in my hand. _Ew._

I started creating… something. The data was flowing from my left hand, which held the soul, to the right one. That was something entirely new to me. Alphys did say that a soul remembers its body. _Perhaps I could use this feature to create one?_

The body was almost done when I felt the soul shake. Tiny cracks appeared on its surface.

_It was breaking down._

I quickly took a red syringe labeled ‘determination’. Alphys said something about it being the most essential part of a soul because it generated its will to live. An animal’s soul couldn’t last outside of its body, so why not help it a bit?

I slowly injected one milliliter of ‘determination’ into the tiny white ball. The cracks stopped. The body began generating again.

When it was done, I inserted the soul into its new vessel. The body began moving. It opened its eyes. The rabbit behaved as nothing happened. When I put it down, it started jumping around the room. I stared, dumbfounded. _Was it that simple?_ _Could I revive Alice just like that?_

Walter materialized out of nowhere in front of me. “Well done. I expected you to start experimenting and get distracted by the tools I gave you, but apparently, sometimes the easiest solution is the best one.”

“Why even help me? Why give me hope?”

“If everything goes according to my plan, you will be staying here for at least a few months. I don’t want to live with a mentally broken roommate that long, and helping your mind heal and recover is the best way to do so.”

. . . . . .

Days passed. Walter has shown me around the home he created inside the Barrier – it was a big mansion with a few floors, several bathrooms and bedrooms, and a living room connected to a kitchen. No garage, no exits. Other things worth mentioning were the TV’s, that could display both human and monster programs, and the computers, capable of somehow downloading any program without accessing the internet, which was impossible for an obvious reason; Walter didn’t want me to contact anyone.

Especially the windows amazed me. They streamed various areas in the Underground in live-action. I spent hours looking into them, especially the one in my room, which displayed the Lab. While I was locked in the house, unable to get out, Alphys’ state was getting worse – her hands shook while working on mechanisms that required precision, she stuttered more and would occasionally burst into tears without a reason when she was alone. She recently started working on a dangerous project.

Monsters that entirely lost the will to live would ‘fall down’ - enter a state which caused them to lie down motionlessly for days, and eventually dissolve into dust due to being unable to eat. Alphys announced that she would collect bodies of those monsters that were still intact toin order to try using their souls to break the Barrier. Her experiments were a failure – each and every soul she tried to harvest would break after being separated from its body. Then she tried to inject them with determination, and surprisingly, it revived the fallen monsters. That is, for a few hours.

Monster bodies turned out unable to stand these levels of determination, and they melted together with each other.

How was she going to get out of this?


	31. Chapter 31

One of the windows in an unused bedroom in Walter’s bizarre house was stationed to monitor Sans and Papyrus’ household. That place looked like a regular place to live in, if it wasn’t for a large painting of a single bone in the middle of a wall. Only the living room and the second floor was visible from my perspective.

I was laying on an unmade bed in front of that window, when the door opened and Papyrus stepped inside, loud as always.

“MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME, HUMAN BRIAN, WHILE I PREPARE SOME DELICIOUS PASTA! THE COUCH IS ALL YOURS FOR AS LONG AS YOU WANT!”

I looked closer, hoping that I misheard him. Unfortunately, not. A teenager with glasses and a book under his shoulder walked into the house.

“Another human has fallen, I see. The sixth soul in Asgore’s collection.”

“Maybe this one will survive?” I asked, not without hope.

“That is unlikely. His physical condition is very weak; he probably entered the Underground in order to run away. He must have discovered that the mountain was a good place if you wanted to disappear.”

Well, that one was my fault. Kind of.

We watched as Brian lied on the couch, and read a book about recent urban legends. Oh look, Mount Ebott was there. It said that ‘a few months ago, a terrible monster came out of the mountainside and hypnotized a teenager to come with him. The boy never returned, and the same stood true for everyone who climbed the mountain.’

“Would you look at that? You’re famous, son!” Walter laughed.

“Yeah, yeah, thank you, in this interview, I’d like to thank my dad, who has **always been there for me** and **has supported me…** ” More laughing. We started to sort of get along after some time in the Barrier. Well, our relationship has evolved from _complete hate_ to _sarcastic dad jokes._ In other words: we were starting to behave like a regular family.

“But seriously, I think he’s going to live in there for quite some time.”

“I disagree.” Walter shook his head. “Papyrus has started to apply for a position in the Royal Guard. His best friend is Undyne, and he’s too innocent and honest to keep himself from telling her for a long time. He doesn’t even know what’s going to happen to him.”

Yeah, Papyrus was both amazing and naive when it came to that. He could see good in anyone, he even talked about his father like he suffered no pain from his experiments if someone brought up the topic.

Sans on the other hand, was getting desperate. He tried everything to return to the Light World – he even built a weird-looking machine in his basement. Papyrus called him lazy, but Walter told me the truth – Sans was just biologically unable to stay awake for a long time. His default physical state was very fragile, and Sans’ body only got stronger after sleeping for long amounts of time. And that’s what he did – he usually spent around eighteen hours a day laying in the snow, or in his sentry station, or in his illegal hot dog stand, and sometimes even while standing straight, without leaning against anything. He also didn’t walk much, since shortcuts took him really small amounts of magic. He also accumulated magic while falling asleep – his usual magic abilities weren’t outstanding, but after the amounts of sleep he got…

Everyone he decided to attack would have a _really bad time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand this chapter more or less explains why Sans is so OP in the genocide runs.


	32. Chapter 32: Soul Clans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early chapteeeeer! Yeah, another one might show up today because I usually write around 9-10 PM, and today decided to complete this one at 2 because I wAs BoReD. And no, I don't have any pre-written chapters, as soon as I finish one, I publish it. That's also why I sometimes don't post, I lose track of time and it simply gets too late for writing. There's much new info in this one, I recommend paying attention.

Undyne found out about the human. I don’t need to tell you about what happened next. I and Walter watched silently as he had been led to the Royal Palace.

“What would happen if the Barrier had been broken?” I asked out of the blue.

“The monsters would roam free, and get wiped out by the humans around five minutes after declaring war.”

Well, that’s a little bit pessimistic.

“No, I mean… To you and me?”

“Well, you would probably be released without harm, because you have spent little time in the Barrier compared to me. As it has been the means of your human-dragon transformation, I presume that you would gain the ability to shift between your forms at will.”

“And what about you?”

His expression darkened. “I am addicted to this household. Instead of aging, I have become more and more reliant on the Barrier. It has become a huge part of my biology and magic. I… I prefer not to think about what would happen to me if I left without preparation.”

“Then… Why don’t you prepare whatever you have to and then leave on your own?”

He chuckled. “It’s easy to talk about, but not so to accomplish. Right now, to me and you, the Barrier behaves like a separate universe. You can walk in the parts I have prepared for you, but to do so, I have to hold the matter of this realm all by myself. Think of the time you tried to hold two edges of a crack in the universe. Yes, the corrupted Walter complained about that. And now multiply the feeling you had by around fifty times. This is how much I have to embrace every single moment to maintain this household and to make living inside feel natural. If I were to try to let go of everything that connects me to the barrier, we would both suffer terribly from that decision. That is why I wanted to stay in here as long as possible.”

“Oh...”

We looked at each other in silence.

“So how come were you always so busy when I was young?” He would always evade all of my questions, saying ‘I’m working’ or ‘Go ask your mom.’ That has changed a lot during a few days in the Barrier, so I wondered: why hasn’t it changed during all these years? If he was doing important research back then, he now had the perfect environment too.

He sighed. “I was just avoiding you. Yes, I did have research to do, but I could have easily answered all of your questions. I didn’t do it because… I didn’t want to have a son in the first place.”

“Really? Then why did you?”

“I felt that it’s my responsibility, as a Dragon Soul Clan’s member. I wanted the bloodline to be carried further to thank my father for making the same decision.”

“Wait. You said something about Soul Clans before What are they?”

“Our bloodline is one. Alice’s is another. They’re essentially the genes that gave you wings, gave me wings, and so on for all of our ancestors. There are seven in total, and all are descendants of the mages who created the Barrier.”

“I know of three at the moment. Aside from the Fox and Dragon clans that you’re familiar with, there’s also the Wolf Clan. This clan is the strongest one I’m familiar with. Its members’ souls are Brave, like Victoria’s, but instead of carrying on through the first member, there are always twelve members of each generation.”

Oh crap. Their mother must have real trouble with pregnancy.

“They all have specific mindsets towards their brothers and sisters. There is always an Alpha pair, a male and a female, who are always in love with each other and can together give birth to the next Clan members. I guess one could call that incest, but in this case, it’s natural and does not cause genetic complications. All of their brothers and sisters act obediently towards them.”

“Then there are four Heralds, two for each Alpha. They act as protectors of their superior clanmates, and each one is prepared to sacrifice their lives to save the Alpha, if necessary.”

“Two Helpers, who are dedicated to… Well, you can guess for yourself. They will work very hard for the other ten, and they’re perfectly fine with situations where, for example, no one else wants to do certain chores. The Helpers will volunteer if it helps their siblings.”

“The remaining four are Lone Wolves. They’re the least predictable clan members because each of them has a different personality. Some like painting, others archery… You know what I mean. But all are very skilled in their talents. They usually help the other clan members, but after growing up and maturing, they will eventually leave and start their own families. Their children will be regular humans, just like every clan member’s except the Alphas.”

“That’s a… pretty big clan, isn’t it?” I would never imagine anyone having eight children, let alone twelve.

“Yes, and that is why they’re so dangerous. They can’t transform the way you do, that is, by stepping through the Barrier, but each one can do it voluntarily and can maintain a werewolf’s form for around thirty seconds. Training increases that amount. I know so much about them because they were the ones who started the great war between monsters and humans. If the Barrier eventually falls, I would watch out for them.”

Well, that was a lot of info for one day, but I stopped thinking about it the moment I looked into a window that showed a purple door to the Ruins.

A human has come out of them.

And I recognized him as Frisk.

Why the hell did it have to be Frisk?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I got inspired by Twilight. Aaaand I may make a vampire clan at some point because for now I only thought of dragons, foxes, and wolves.


	33. Chapter 33: Snow, Water, And Spaghetti

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this chapter is basically Frisk going through the Underground. And, to clarify, he's doing his first and only run, a pacifist one. No resets in this fic.

“Do you know that human?” Walter asked.

“Yeah… She...” Well, I might as well do Frisk a favor and trick Walter about their gender. “I know her from the surface. “Her sight is so bad that she keeps squinting, but she’s an orphan, so she never got money for glasses.”

“If she ate any amounts of monster food by now, her sight has been restored. She must now have great reflexes compared to what she’s used to.”

Well then, my worries are gone. I was afraid that Frisk wouldn’t be able to take care of himself due to his limited sight, but if that’s how things are, he might now be able to dodge bullets in Matrix-styler.

And indeed he did. He encountered Papyrus in Snowdin, who tried to capture him by throwing bone attacks all over the place, but Frisk just jumped over them all. No bone hit him, and he even managed to flirt with Papyrus.

“F-FLIRTING? SO YOU FINALLY REVEAL YOUR **ULTIMATE FEELINGS…** VERY WELL! BUT I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, AM A SKELETON WITH EXCEEDINGLY HIGH STANDARDS!”

“I can make spaghetti!” Frisk shouted.

“OH NO! YOU’RE MEETING ALL OF MY STANDARDS! VERY WELL, I WILL GO ON A DATE WITH YOU… AFTER I CAPTURE YOU!”

Walter growled. “Nooo, son, don’t fall under her charms! Women are temporary, bones are eternal!”

I burst with laughter. “Accept it, dad, your son is an adult! He’s able to make his own decisions!”

“He’s going to waste his life…”

We watched as Frisk and Papyrus went into the latter’s household, and into his room. They exchanged compliments, and Frisk uncovered the great Papyrus’ greatest secret, which was a plate of spaghetti under his head.

“Yes, son! Good choice! Assassinate the human with your indescribable cooking skills!”

“Is he really that bad at cooking?”

“He puts in confetti and sequins to make the taste more glamorous.”

“Oh.”

Surprisingly, Frisk didn’t die while devouring the pasta. Wow. This kid sure is immortal. He may even stand a chance against Undyne.

Who was met in Waterfall, shortly after the date ended with Papyrus noticing Frisk’s incomprehensible love for him, and deciding to put him in the friendzone instead.

“Yes, son! That’s what you do with filthy humans who try to flirt with you!”

“You do realize that you’re human too?”

“I don’t flirt.”

I smiled. “Really? Then how did you meet Mom?”

“While doing something way more dignified than such dirty shenanigans.” Oh crap. He was 100% tsundere.

Undyne scolded Papyrus for not capturing Frisk. He desperately tried to convince her to become friends with Frisk instead, but eventually backed off. Frisk was nearly pierced with a spear after Undyne noticed him moving in his hiding spot in tall grass, but she decided against wasting her precious magic. She probably thought it was just her imagination.

“I’m really curious if this one can get past Undyne” Gaster said.

Frisk got to the Hotland’s entrance. Undyne gave him a speech about imprisonment and his life being the only thing keeping the monsters away from freedom. Then she threw him a spear so that he can defend himself, and attacked. Countless spears were thrown and deflected, to Undyne’s fury. Wow. This kid really had Matrix-style reflex. This looked like Polnareff deflecting bullets with a sword, even cutting them in half.

He eventually found an opening in her defenses and ran to Hotland. Undyne chased after, stopping only to yell at Sans who didn’t give a crap about a human running past his sentry station. She was just about to catch Frisk when she collapsed from the heat.

“What is she doing?” Gaster asked as Frisk walked up to a water cooler.

He obtained a cup of water and poured it on Undyne’s face. She stood up. She was furious – defeated by a human child, and saved out of pity. But she just walked away.

Frisk, surprisingly, took a boat back to Waterfall, to Papyrus, who was waiting under Undyne’s house.

“What is this girl doing?” Walter wondered.

The door opened, to reveal smiling Undyne.

“Hey Papyrus! Ready for our extra-private, one-on-one training?”

“I AM! AND I BROUGHT A FRIEND!”

He moved aside, to reveal frisk. “Hiya,” he said.

“Hey! I don’t think we’ve...” She stopped as she realized who she was talking to.

“Oh my goodness” Father commented.

“Why don’t. You two. Come in?”

When inside, Papyrus said that he had to go to the bathroom, which was strange since he was a skeleton, and jumped out through the window. Undyne has planned a great way of revenge. If she makes friends with the human, they will be totally humiliated! She made Frisk some tea, sat down, and they talked for a while. She confessed that she doesn’t think she can let Papyrus into the Royal Guard because he’s too nice and innocent to fight. So she taught him cooking instead. Then she realized that if she and Papyrus became friends through cooking, the same strategy will work for Frisk as well! They cooked, and cooked, and… well, they burned the house down. Undyne then tried to fight Frisk again, but after seeing that the human had no intention of fighting back, she let him go.

“Well, that’s a way to become friends” Walter chuckled.

  



	34. Chapter 34: The end...?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wooh, this chapter took me a while. Sorry, I didn't feel like writing for some time.

Frisk returned to Hotland, where he met Alphys. She told him that she created a robot who was supposed to kill humans, but she changed her mind when she looked at him on the screen. The robot’s name was Mettaton.

“Wait... THE Mettaton? Like, famous-monster-celebrity Mettaton?” I asked.

“Yes, although he is not entirely a robot. What Alphys created was just a metallic vessel for a ghost monster. Nobody knows this, of course. Except me.”

Said robot destroyed one of the Lab’s walls, and made a glamorous quiz show, threatening to kill Frisk if they answered incorrectly. Of course, Alphys was helping behind the robot’s back. When Mettaton realized that, he ended the show peacefully, saying that there’s no point in continuing since the contestants were cheating, and Frisk left.

“Watch this” Walter said. As soon as the human left, Alphys sat down to her computer. She began reactivating old puzzles in Hotland.

“Why is she doing this?” I asked. “I thought she was supposed to help Frisk...”

“Her mental state is really bad. She had lost two people she really cared about, and the weight of the Amalgamates does not make her feel better. She desperately tried to convince herself that she’s doing something to help, even if she’s just protecting Frisk from the dangers she creates herself.”

Was it really that bad?

“Speaking of Frisk, what are you going to do when Asgore destroys the Barrier?”

“He will not.”

“What? Do you believe in her that much?”

“No. He’s just not going to be able to absorb the souls.”

The window switched to present a flower with a nasty face.

“What? Who’s that flower?”

“Yes. He’s going to take them before Asgore and leave through the Barrier.”

“How can you tell?”

“He’s the one monster without any love or compassion. He doesn’t have a soul.”

“How can he not have one?”

“He used to. I know a certain thief who has absorbed a monster’s soul.”

“Who?” He just looked at me. “Who took his soul?”

No, wait. He couldn’t be talking about…

“Is that Prince Asriel?”

“Yes.”

“But… how?”

“His dust, along with some flower seeds you brought into the Underground, was spread onto the soil. The seeds grew into flowers. When Alphys was experimenting with the fallen monsters, she injected some determination into one of them. And then it became Flowey.”

“What kind of name is Flowey?”

“The King’s son inherited naming skills after his dad.”

Oh. Hotland was hot, Waterfall had waterfalls, and Flowey was a flower. Like father like son.

“But what’s he going to do then?”

“Presumably, when he gains a soul, he should start behaving like a living person. He’ll be able to feel joy, happiness, and love.”

“Won’t he break the barrier then?”

“I don’t think so. Asgore hasn’t done it yet not because he couldn’t, but because he didn’t want to. He could easily have absorbed Caled’s soul and gone through the barrier, but he was reluctant to start a wall. It would be a few thousand monsters and seven human souls against tall of humanity. Flowey will know better than that. He’ll just want to rejoin his father.”

We returned to watching Frisk and Alphys ‘defeat’ Mettaton in various events like cooking shows, news programs, and even an opera. The sight of a metal box in a dress made me laugh. Frisk eventually entered the core and encountered Mettaton again. The robot transformed into a body that could only be described as super hot. Frisk managed to escape the situation by posing, boasting and heel-turning until the robot was out of energy. That kid was one hell of a dancer.

He finally entered the castle and met Asgore, who fought him close to the Barrier. Frisk fought back, surprisingly. He was really skilled with a dagger. Eventually, the King spared him. Frisk accepted.

They agreed to live in the castle like a family.

And then white petals surrounded Asgore, striking his soul and killing him.

“What?!” I looked at Gaster. He was shocked as well.

The flower had six human souls and yet murdered his own father with old blood.

The room went dark.

“T-this wasn’t supposed to happen...” Gaster whispered. “What is he DOING?!”

Flowey transformed into the most horrendous plant-creature I have ever seen. Six giant petals around a massive animal head, and huge vines with claws. A TV with Flowey’s original face was attached on top.

“THAT’S NOT HOW IT WAS SUPPOSED TO GO!”

The creature laughed. It started attacking Frisk, who kept dodging. The beast’s attacks were terrifying – flamethrowers, vines, and huge white petals. Suddenly Flowey disappeared, and in his place appeared a light blue soul, with a nearly transparent projected body. It was Caled’s.

It began throwing knives at the boy, who kept jumping around them.

“Caled?! What are you doing?! You don’t have to fight!” I shouted.

“He won’t hear you from here,” Walter said.

But inside Caled’s soul, something resonated…!

“Right,” he said and shook his head, “What am I doing?”

The knives turned into bandages. They flew up to Frisk and healed his wounds.

Flowey appeared again. More deadly attacks.

Victoria’s soul appeared. She also tried to attack Frisk but stopped as soon as I told her to.

“I don’t know why I was trying to beat you up, sorry for that.”

Alice, Brian, Mom, and Jake. They all came one after the other, and stopped attacking shortly after. When all six were ‘convinced’, something changed. Frisk grabbed a knife. I didn’t think he would do any damage, but each hit seemed to weaken Flowey.

“No… NO!”

“This can’t be happening!”

“You… YOU...”

The flower was just about to collapse when something changed.

All of his injuries were healed, and petals entirely surrounded frisk.

“You IDIOT.”

“Did you really think...”

“You could defeat ME?”

“I am the god of this world.”

“And YOU?”

“You’re HOPELESS.”

“Hopeless and alone...”

“Golly, that’s right!”

“Your worthless friends...”

“...can’t save you now.”

“Call for help. I dare you.”

“Cry into the darkness!”

Silence.

“But nobody came.”

“Boy! What a shame!”

“Nobody else...”

“Is gonna get to see you DIE!”

He laughed. The petals tightened around Frisk, and…

They disappeared.

Frisk was fully healed.

Flowey looked surprised.

“What?”

“How’d you…?”

“Well, I’ll just...”

Nothing happened.

“Wh...”

“Where are my powers?!”

Six colorful souls appeared around him.

“The souls?”

“What are they doing?”

They started spinning around him, faster and faster…

“NO! NO! YOU CAN’T DO THAT! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO OBEY ME!”

“STOP!! STOP IT!!”

“STOOOOOOPPPPPP!!!!!!!...”

Everything was covered in white light.


	35. Chapter 35: The Other End...?

“Wait,” Walter said, “What is she doing?”

Frisk was just about to enter the Barrier room, but turned back and headed to the MTT resort.

“I dunno, maybe she forgot something?”

When he was just about to enter the hotel, his phone rang. Frisk answered, listened for a while, and headed to Snowdin. She was greeted by Undyne and Papyrus.

“Hey, punk! Uh, I need you to deliver something for me. To Alphys.”

The ‘something’ turned out to be a parcel.

“Oh, and if you read it, I’ll KILL you.”

Well, I don’t know how serious Undyne was about that, because it was shut so strongly Frisk would need a chainsaw to open it.

Apparently, Alphys did have one. As soon as Frisk slid the letter under her door, she opened it.

Oh crap.

It was a love letter.

It wasn’t signed.

She thought Frisk was the one who wrote it, and he didn’t object, surprisingly. They went on a date to the garbage dump.

“Does my successor have no standards?”

“Well, it was her favorite place to collect broken electronics and anime CDs. Such great memories must bring romantic feelings.”

“That’s not what I mean. That human isn’t even attractive!”

“Oooooh, I’m SO telling Frisk you said that.”

They… dated. After a while, Undyne came to look for Alphys, who hid behind a trash can. It turned out that she had a HUGE crush on Undyne. And the feeling was mutual. They talked about their feelings for a few moments, and Undyne agreed to train Alphys. Not personally, but that’s beside the point.

When Frisk left, Papyrus called him to say that he should visit Alphys’ house.

He did. A note on the floor from Alphys told him to step into the bottom lab.

“Oh no.”

“Oh no indeed.”

Frisk met the Amalgamates. He managed to peacefully escape each one of them, even though not without being creeped out by some. Finally, he met Alphys, who explained everything to him.

“I’ll make sure that this kid doesn’t get sidetracked again,” Walter said. “I can redirect the lab elevator to Asgore’s castle.”

“Can you really do that from here?”

“Yes, even though I am trapped here, I have ways to alter the Underground.”

He did so. Frisk entered the throne room. Asgore was just about to pull out his trident when his ex appeared and knocked him out.

“What?” I shouted. “Who the hell is that?”

“Queen Toriel Dreemurr” Walter replied. “She hid in the Ruins for a very long time, but apparently decided that Frisk needs guidance. Well, the girl did well on her own, but it’s still nice not having to fight a monster king.”

Not only Toriel appeared – Papyrus, Sans, Alphys, Undyne, and every single monster Frisk encountered was now in or near the castle. A crowd of magical people, wanting to stop the King from hurting the human who behaved so friendly…

...and here comes Flowey.

He took the human souls.

And the souls of EVERY SINGLE MONSTER IN THE UNDERGROUND.

A white light covered everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have these two chapters at once. And I really don't feel like describing the Asriel fight, so I'll just make "wHiTe LiGhT bLaCk MaGiC", or in other words, a timeskip.


	36. Chapter 36: Finally Free!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes  
> The magic of timeskips

I was standing in Waterfall. Walter was there too.

“What happened?” I asked.

“T… The barrier has been destroyed...” I noticed that he was spitting blood.

“Help! Someone help! Does anyone know healing magic?”

A small monster ran close. They poured some green healing water on my father.

“Thank you. That feels better. I dealt with it better than I thought it would.”

Sans materialized close to us.

“hey there. long time no see.”

He spotted Walter and his eyes widened. I had to intervene.

“No, no, no, please don’t beat the crap out of dad, he’s better now, he thought things over, he needs to recover.”

“huh? you there protecting him? what happened between you two?”

I told him what happened between us two.

“weird. now listen there daddy-o. i will never forgive you for stuff you did.”

“I guess I don’t deserve that, do I...”

“but everyone else deserves to be happy, and cade wouldnt be if I killed ya. so ill let you go. this time.”

“Oh, and Sans,” I remembered, “Can I borrow your magic? I need to warp to some places real quick.”

“knock yourself out.”

Snowdin. The weird dog’s hut. Caled’s body was still there, frozen in time. His soul has already returned on its own. With little effort, I melted the shell and the structure in his body. He opened his eyes.

“Wow. Yeah, I had to be pretty patient for that.”

“Well, some time passed. Now come on. We’ve got people to revive.”

Snowdin again. Jake’s body buried under a snow poff.

The bottom lab. Victoria’s body hidden in a bath. I never figured why Alphys put it there.

The Castle’s basement. Mom, sleeping in a coffin. “Cade Gaster, you’re never running away from home like that again,” she scolded me.

The Barrier’s room, now without the Barrier. The others and Frisk already left. The Sun was lighting the room. Brian’s and Alice’s souls were trapped inside glass jars. I created each one a body they needed.

Alice punched me in the face.

“What was THAT for?”

“For disappearing and forcing me to sacrifice myself.”

I, Sans and Walter caught up to the rest. Alphys’ face lit up as soon as she spotted me.

“Y-you’re alive! How...?”

“Well, stuff happened.”

Asgore looked at Walter. “I demand explanations as soon as we settle down.”

“Well, I’m tired of explaining, but I’ll try.

“seen any humans yet?”

Papyrus shook his head. “NONE SO FAR.”

We heard voices somewhere close. Two humans walked up the path, one carrying a camera, and the other one talking.

“Welcome, dear viewers, today we’ll be hiking Mt. Ebott, a beautiful mountain in...” He stopped, as soon as he saw our group. The other one also froze, pointing his camera directly at Papyrus. They both turned around and ran. The speaker corrected himself. “Change of plans, dear viewers, we’ll be jogging down the base of Mt. Ebott, a beautiful...”

We burst with laughter. “Well, the military is gonna be here soon.”

“Why would they?”

“Well, humanity discovered a new intelligent race, and they don’t know if we’re dangerous. How about putting up a camp near the Barrier?”

“Sounds alright” Asgore agreed.

“Oh, and Asgore? Remember these humans that fell down into the Underground?”

His expression darkened. “I… I don’t think I’ll forget them anytime soon.”

“Well, they’ll certainly make it hard to,” I said, pointing to the group of revived humans that caught up to us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asgore.exe stopped working  
> And this fic is far from over! Next up:  
> More drama!  
> More romance!  
> More science!  
> More typos corrected by Grammarly!  
> See you!


	37. Chapter 37: The New Life

Sans and Papyrus shortcutted us a few foldable camping tables from the Underground. We all sat down, and I and Walter explained our sudden disappearance. Asgore decided that there will be no hard punishment for his actions, but the king said that he doesn’t trust him, and we agreed that from now on me, mom and Walter will live in the same house.

“I would like to ask all present humans,” Asgore started, “What should we do when the rest of humankind notices us?”

“It depends on how they greet us” Walter replied. “If they come in with helicopters and start pointing rifles at us, the first thing we do is putting our hands behind our backs. That’s the equivalent of ‘I don’t want to fight’.”

Undyne groaned. “Can’t I just beat the crap out of them?”

“Remember what Jake did with one revolver in Snowdin? The military is going to come with at least twenty, and they’re going to be much stronger. We’d be dust in ten seconds. Then, they will probably separate humans from monsters. That reminds me – Cade, could you try to transform into your human form? In the Barrier, I deducted that you should be able to.”

I tried. My body became smaller, the tail disappeared, and scales shifted into skin. I now looked like a regular human – aside from the wings, obviously, but they also faded away after a while of focusing.

“Wow. I’m now an Ultimate Humonster.”

“That’s EPIC!” Undyne shouted. “Starting a petition to design a human transformation rune!”

“That would be handy,” Asgore said, “but I don’t think the human government would like that.”

The human officials came half an hour later, and surprisingly no guns were fired at anyone. The rules were the following: we’re getting a large part of the mountain for ourselves, we can do whatever we want as long as we don’t leave it, and the military guards the borders. The humans had to go home, but I was allowed to stay, thanks to the fact that I returned to my dragon form before the officials appeared. That situation was temporary, and we’d likely get more rights sooner. Asgore agreed.

. . . . .

The night was greeted by a celebration – the First Annual Freedom Celebration Party. The fireplace was huge, powered by magic. Countless sausages and bread slices were frying on long sticks. I was lying on a bench, tired after a day of creating houses for monsters and the fence surrounding our area with magic. Kids were playing football, forbidden to play Monsters against Humans for obvious reasons.

Alice sat beside me.

“That’s a beautiful night.”

“Yeah.”

“We should get the telescope from my house.”

“no need to go that far, i already got one” Sans appeared with a telescope.

“Did you even have those things in the Underground?”

“used’em to look at crystals. look.”

I peeked through the telescope and saw thousands of little sparks, forming countless shapes and patterns.

I never thought I’d miss the sky so much, but… here we are.

. . . . .

That was a crazy celebration. Asgore had given his speech, and a few tech-savvy monsters shot some fireworks. I was among them, to be honest, and that’s when I learned that you can fuse your magic with a friend’s. We fired some fire-induced rockets and frost-induced rockets, and… well, you get the point.

The party ended at 5 AM. We all went to our new homes afterward. Alphys now had something the size of a mini-lab, and she didn’t have any equipment with her yet. But she was now living with Undyne.

Sans and Papyrus got a house similar to the one he had in the Underground, only without Christmas lights and snow on the roof. All of the stuff they had has already been transported, either by Sans’ shortcuts, or sprinting Papyrus. That guy was really fast.

Toriel agreed to live with Asgore, but she made it painfully clear that it was ‘only so I can keep an eye on you, Dreemurr’. Their house was designed to look like a cozy regular household. I could see Flowey hang out near them the whole party, but he never showed himself to them.

I carried sleeping Alice to our and Walter’s new house. Well, it looked exactly like my old one, with one difference: the roof could be opened to reveal a large balcony. I designed it as an airstrip, but it could as well be used to watch the night sky.

Home sweet home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I accept all and any chapter ideas! I don't want to put plot-related stuff yet, just random surface moments.


	38. Chapter 38: An Interview

I woke up to see masses of human reporters standing behind the fence surrounding the area granted to monsters. As soon as they noticed me they started taking photos. Flashes blinded me.

“Whoa whoa whoa stop!” I yelled, covering my eyes. “I have eyes too, you know?”

The lights stopped. I saw Asgore coming close as well.

“What do we have here?” He asked.

“Reporters. They just want to sneak into our area and steal all of monsterkind’s secrets.

“Ha ha ha! Is that so? Well then, it’s not like we have anything to hide.”

“If you say so.” I already stopped calling him titles. He was more like a friend than a king.

An idea occurred to me. I turned to the crowd. “But I gotta warn you guys. This area does not obey human law. That’s a part of the deal with your government. So if anything happens to ya… Well, you enter on your own responsibility.”

“Can’t we just talk through the fence?” One of them shouted.

“No, because that’s rude, impolite, and no good host or guest would ever do that.”

Slowly, one man after another, the crowd disappeared. Only one woman with a camera was left.

“You’re not afraid?” I asked.

“Nah. It was obvious from the beginning that you were just bluffing. One mountain of monsters would stand no chance against seven billion humans, so your best bet were peaceful relations, and you wouldn’t get that by killing everyone for trespassing.”

“You have some smarts.” I waved my hand, and a part of the fence disappeared. The woman gasped.

“What! You need to tell me how you did that.” She outstretched her hand. “Annabeth Compton. I work for World And Business.”

“I’m Cade. Shouldn’t you, um, greet the king first?” We earlier agreed that I and Walter can’t reveal our last name since that would raise suspicions.

“Oh my. So sorry, mister…?”

“Asgore Dreemurr. And that’s no problem at all, you couldn’t possibly tell.” He shook her hand.

“Thank you. Could I ask for an interview?

“Alright,” Asgore agreed. “So what would you like to ask?”

“First of all, what are the monsterkind’s plans for the future?”

“We plan on slowly integrating into human society. I have been told that monsters as fictional creatures aren’t exactly… perceived in a good light, but we will work on making that opinion better.”

“That trick with the disappearing fence just now, what was that?”

“Magic,” I responded, doing jazz hands.

“And now seriously?”

“Magic. That’s all there is to it. Monsters can use magic, and we have proof that humans used to possess that ability too.”

“What proof?”

“The Barrier. It’s a spell created by the ancient humans in order to trap us underground, and we managed to break it yesterday.”

“May I have some clearance on what exactly magic is and how it works?”

“Of course” Asgore responded. “For that, I think it will be best to call the Royal Scientist.”

We went to Alphys’ house and knocked on the door. Undyne opened.

“Hey, Asgore! Um, what’s with the human?”

“Hello, Undyne. I was having an interview with Ms. Compton, and I’d like Alphys to explain a few things about magic. Would that be okay?”

“Yeah! I mean, if she doesn’t mind.”

“I-I don’t mind,” came a voice from behind.

“Very well! Let’s sit down, shall we?”

. . . . .

“M-magic is the energy a soul emits in order to interact with the world. Technically every human uses magic in order to move their bodies, but we decided to call it necessary magic since it’s needed to live.”

“Would you elaborate on the concept of souls?”

“Well… don’t humans know what souls are?”  
“According to many religions...”

“That’s not what we’re talking about here” I interrupted. “Souls can be defined as a culmination of one’s being, but there are tools that make measuring them possible. We can quickly scan your soul if you don’t mind.”

“Um… Sure! If it’s not dangerous, I have no objections.”

Alphys found a soul scanner and pointed it at the journalist. After a while, a soul appeared on the screen.

“Y-yours is purple,” she said. “That’s for Perseverance.”

“Wow, I never knew something like that exists. So the culmination of my being is basically a floating heart?”

“Hey! That’s a pretty big deal! Humans don’t have a way to see their souls without any help, but it’s still very important. Certain magic types can affect the soul, like blue magic. It’s used to move things and people around without touching them.”

“Thank you. That would be it for the interview.” Ms. Compton stood up.

“Oh, and one more thing” she remembered. “When do you hope to gain legal rights?”

“As soon as possible. We think that it’s likely to happen this year, but for now, we’re happy to at least have the stars.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if the ending feels... un-end-ing, but I don't know how to end stuff without using small cliffhangers.


	39. Chapter 39: Playing Monopoly!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the version of Monopoly they're playing is Monopoly City, and the street names are badly translated from Polish by me. If anyone out there lives in the US and knows their English names, tell me in the comments; I'll edit.

After the reporter left, I got a call from Papyrus.

“CADE! IT IS I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WITH NEWS! THE LITTLE HUMAN FRISK HAS REQUESTED US ALL TO PLAY A BOARD GAME WITH THEM IN ASGORE’S HOUSE. YOU ARE INVITED!”

“Cool! What game?”

“MONOPOLY. I DO NOT KNOW THE RULES, BUT THEY SAY IT’S FUN!”

“Okay, I’m coming. Who else is invited?”

. . . . .

After a short while, Sans, Undyne, Papyrus, Toriel, Asgore, Alphys, Alice, Frisk, Walter and I were sitting on the floor in Asgore and Toriel’s living room.

“What are the rules?” Toriel asked.

“It’s basically about getting rich by buying segments of a town, and not getting bankrupt.”

“sounds fine to me,” Sans agreed.

“Wait, but there are only six pawns,” Toriel pointed out.

I focused and created figurines of a knight, a rogue, a mage and a cloaked man.

“The thief’s mine” Alice quickly stated.

“Alright, then I’ll take the wizard,” Walter said.

“Nope dad, the cloak is all you get.” he took the figurine and examined it, noticing that there was no man inside the cloak. Sans burst with laughter.

Eventually Frisk took the mage, and I got the warrior. The others got a default figurine each.

“Why did the humans get cool fantasy pawns and I’m a freaking BUCKET OF PAINT?” Undyne protested.

“you could be one of your spears, but that would ruin the game” Sans pointed out.

“I bet thirty gold that Alice’s gonna win,” I said out of the blue.

“what? why?”

“You’ll see. Anyone wanna bet?”

Undyne and Papyrus took my offer. Walter too, surprisingly.

“There’s a ten percent chance that your prediction is right. You don’t stand a chance against mathematics.”

Eventually, I explained the rules in detail, adding something from myself. When I usually play the game, everything that happens in a turn is impossible to undo after the dices are thrown again, even if it was against the rules. If you want to catch a thief, catch him quickly. If you forget someone was supposed to pay you and someone starts another turn, your money is lost. Additionally, no one was allowed to throw the dices before the other person says their turn is over. Then the game started.

Toriel played carefully, buying many streets but not building on them. Papyrus and Undyne bought one street each and were now filling them with buildings. They were both cheap streets, so that strategy wouldn’t last long, but everyone knew better than to tell them that. Everyone except Toriel who took pity on them, but they shrugged her off saying that “THEIR STREETS ARE GONNA BE THE MOST PACKED ONES EVER!”

Everyone took different strategies. Alice focused on orange and red streets, collecting most after three laps. Sans snatched one of them too a while ago. Frisk only had Diamond Hills, the most expensive place on the board.

He was now standing on the Valley of the Rich, the second most expensive street with five blocks. He groaned.

“Pass me the Service Street and we’re even,” proposed Alice, the owner of the street. Sans agreed, and let the next person start their turn. Alice’s act of ownership disappeared, along with the five buildings. “Thanks for that,” she told me.

“what the...” Sans paused, and looked at me with disbelief, and then at the real ownership card, still lying in the bank. “you made that?”

“What happens in a turn, stays in a turn” I reminded.

Meanwhile, Alice bought the Legendary Office Building. It was only available after you had two full colors, it cost 7 million M, the game’s currency, and doubled the rent others had to pay you on EVERY STREET.

Needless to say, we went bankrupt one after the other, doing miscellaneous things with the bank’s money after losing. Papyrus and Undyne were throwing it at each other shouting anime attack names, Sans and Walter were lying in a cardboard box with a small window and a sign that read ‘JAIL’ made by Frisk, who was giggling at Toriel having a mental breakdown looking at Asgore laying on the floor, defeated. I was standing above Alice – the victor - wearing sunglasses, showering her with her own money. And Mettaton was streaming all of this both on the Undernet and the Internet, the latter using my smartphone he stole from me earlier. I later got to know that he was streaming from the beginning without our knowledge.

I let that slide.

The humans could see all of our actions.

It didn’t matter.

We were happy here.


	40. Chapter 40: A Stream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. 40 chapters. Nice.

Our game of Monopoly had gone viral and it spread rapidly on the Internet. After fifteen hours, two hundred million people have already seen it. The opinions were… various. Fortunately, more than half was positive.

Unfortunately, more than a half wasn’t enough – and that’s why Asgore has asked me, Walter, Mettaton, and Alice to help him prepare for streaming a program about the Monsters’ arrival.

“First of all,” I began, “the clothing matters. If I were you, I’d keep the crown as a sign of authority, but replace the armor with a black suit and a tie.”

“Agreed. Armor would make the watchers think you want to go on a war with them.”

“Wait, wait,” Alice interrupted. “what form of impression do we want to make?”

We all looked at her. “A positive one, obviously,” Walter said.

“Then an announcement in which Asgore just talks into the camera is not the best choice. We have a variety of options to choose from – we can make a documentary program about our lives, a Q-and-A with Mettaton as the host, hell, even a stream where Asgore and MTT answer the viewers’ phone calls, and I can guarantee that it’s going to get a better response.”

Mettaton spoke up. “I absolutely agree, darling! This last proposition convinces me the most since we can show how similar in nature monsters and humans are. Additionally, hosting it from my new social media account I created on Cade’s phone would get us a lot of viewers, since the first video did so well.”

“What else have you done to my phone before that Monopoly game?”

“Don’t worry darling, I cleared the browser history after myself,” he laughed.

Well, that’s a relief.

. . . . .

Twenty-four hours later, after Alphys made an adapter to Mettaton’s camera that made it compatible with my phone, the stream started. Both Asgore and Mettaton had earpieces connected to a microphone located in a ‘studio’, so that the present humans could tell them what to say in order to prevent a ‘culture shock’. Each one of them was sitting on a sofa in official suits, and Asgore was wearing his crown.

Mettaton started the show. “Good morning dear humans and monsters viewing this stream, my name is Mettaton, and today me and the King of the Monsterkind, Asgore Dreemurr, will be answering your phone calls. Would you like to say something to the viewers before we begin, Your Majesty?”

“Yes, Mettaton, thank you. We decided to emit this program because our sudden appearance as a species must have raised multiple questions that we don’t want to keep unanswered. That’s all I wanted to say – on with the calls!”

I answered one of the calls.

“Um, hello, is this a drill?”

Both Mettaton and Asgore laughed. “I ensure you that it’s one hundred percent true, but don’t take my word for it. You can see it for yourself – go to Ebott, climb the mountain, and you should see a fence guarded by the military. That’s where we’re currently living.”

“Oh, thank you.” the caller disconnected, and another called in.

“Hello, is this true that you guys can use magic?”

“Yes.”

Asgore raised a hand. Small flames danced between his fingers.

“We can use magic, and our scientists will provide details about it on further notice.”

The questions went on and on. One girl called because she was afraid that monsters are going to scare her at night, but was ensured that she’s safe and sound. There were a few calls where people just insulted the monsters, but Mettaton and Asgore managed to ignore them. We didn’t have a 30-second delay, but Mettaton connected himself to my phone and censored all non-family-friendly words.

And then there was that guy.

“Hello, I live in Ebott and I wanted to mention an incident from two months ago, where a monster has been spotted, and one human, Cade Gaster, disappeared. Could you give us more detail on that?”

Asgore looked at me with a serious expression. I murmured to my microphone “Tell him I’m alive, and that you’ll say more later.”

“The monster you have spotted was my son. He… died that day. As for Cade, he is alive and will reveal more information when he sees it as fit.”

Silence. Mettaton looked at the clock. It was well past eighteen.

“Well, it’s time to end this program, dear watchers. I hope that all of your questions have been answered. See you all later!” I stopped the stream.

Alice looked at me seriously. “You won’t be able to avoid that question forever, you know?”

“Yeah, just… give me some time. I’ll tell them, but not now. Sometime when monsters have a safe reputation. Now they’ll think that one of them killed me or something.”

“Alright. That’s your decision. Now come on, we’ve gotta help Asgore and Mettaton clean after the stream.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to SCHOOL, I won't post for a few days. Sorry. Also, we're back to a-few-times-a-week upload schedule.


	41. Chapter 41: The Moment Everyone Was Happy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School, guys! Aaand from now on, I'm gonna upload only on Saturdays since I want to stockpile a few chapters.

As soon as we finished cleaning, Frisk rushed to their room.

“Why is he in such a hurry?” I asked.

“Frisk has recently made a new… friend.” From the way Toriel pronounced the word I deducted that she does not support that friendship.

“Who is it?”

“A little flower named Flowey.”

That name made me immediately snap to attention. It was the soulless flower born from the dust of Asriel Dreemurr, after all. Toriel continued.

“Their relationship is a bit strange. Flowey is… not the nicest monster I’ve met, to say the least. Since that seems to not affect Frisk and makes them happy, I don’t object to them meeting each other. Although I’m not pleased with his behavior.”

“Can I see them? Frisk and Flowey?”

“Of course, but please knock on the door. They don’t like being interrupted.”

I did as she instructed. “Come in,” a bored voice answered. I opened the door.

Frisk’s room was painted red, and decorated with many accessories. It was hard to believe that after such a short time on the surface he managed to settle down in an entirely new house. Several fluorescent stars were scattered on the ceiling, walls, and even the bed. A few jigsaw puzzles were hanging on the walls. Some of them must have been completed with Papyrus’ help because the numbers of pieces in a single puzzle were over nine thousand. The biggest decoration was a cardboard statue of GlaDOS hanging from the ceiling, shortened a few times to fit in the room, but not lacking any detail. Frisk even managed to put a yellow lightbulb inside her eye and connect it (definitely with the skeleton’s help, based on the puzzles he used to set up in Snowdin) so that it served the purpose of the room’s main lighting element. What surprised me the most were pipes full of dirt connected and attached to the walls, with openings in central places like the window, Frisk’s bed and shelves. Their mystery was explained when I saw Flowey sticking out of one of them, with a cable connecting the soil underneath him and an N64 console on the other side of the room, also used by Frisk. The pipes were likely supposed to help the flower move around the room freely, and the cable must have been a controller buried underground to help the flower use it with his roots.

“What do you want?” he asked.

I closed the door behind myself and ensured no one was listening.

“We need to talk… Asriel.”

The movements of both videogame characters stopped. Both players looked at me in shock. Finally, Frisk came to his senses and paused the game.

“How do you know?” Flowey asked.

“My dad told me inside the barrier. He was able to see pretty much everything from there.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. I’m not him.”

“You are.”

“Really? Asriel didn’t have leaves. He wasn’t soulless. He didn’t hate everything around him.”

“You changed, I know, and I’m sorry for that.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. You weren’t involved in this.”

“Yeah, well, I was.” I concentrated. My soul appeared: a black, a white, and a red heart inside one another.

“How did you… Who are you?” Asriel asked in shock.

“I was born a human. I followed you when you were returning to the Underground and touched your and your sibling’s souls. The Barrier transformed me.”

“Oh.” He spent a few seconds thinking. “Can you… return it?”

“It’s probably possible, but I would die in the process.”

“Then don’t. I don’t deserve saving after what I did.”

Suddenly, Frisk’s eyes widened. Which was a rare occurrence, since they almost always squinted to hide their bright red eyes. The boy ran to his desk, opened one drawer, pulled something out and returned.

He was holding something that resembled a glass marble, but with a tiny yellow spark trapped inside it.

“This...” he spoke with a quiet voice. He never spoke unless he had to. “...is a Last Dream. I got it when the barrier was shattered. It can fulfill one wish, as long as it’s not too hard, and doesn’t hurt anyone. I tried to use it to save Asriel, but it was impossible to create a soul, and taking the existing one would hurt you. But right now… I want something else. I want to save you both.”

The marble shone brightly and disappeared. Flowey and I were covered in white light. It disappeared after a few seconds, but I felt… differently. I looked at the flower.

There was no flower, though. A white fluffy boy with small horns and floppy ears in a striped shirt was sitting on Frisk’s bed. A white soul was glowing in his chest. I looked at my own – the original one was in place, but Asriel’s and Chara’s souls were replaced with the Last Dream’s spark.

“I’m…” Asriel looked at his own hands. “I’m myself…”

We heard someone running up the stairs. The door was opened by Toriel.

“Is everything alright, children? I heard...” She spotted Asriel. Time seemed to stop. We were all staring at her, and she was staring at her son.

She didn’t say anything. She ran up to him and wrapped her arms around him. Tears began to flow down her cheeks. Asriel’s, too.

And both of them were finally happy.

 

 

 

 

Wait.

 

 

 

 

If I had my soul…

 

 

 

 

And Asriel had his…

 

 

 

 

Then what happened to Chara’s soul?

 

 

 

 

The Dreemurrs were so focused on each other that they didn’t notice the black heart floating over them. Suddenly, I heard a whisper.

‘ _Finally free...’_

The soul flew away through the window.

Well.

Chara Dreemurr might return someday.

But it didn’t matter now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, you guys deserve some fluff once in a while. Don't think this is the end! Oh boy, we're not even halfway through.  
> 


	42. Chapter 42, Which Sadly Doesn't Contain Answers To Life, Universe Or Anything, But It Does Contain An Attack.

Around 2 AM I was awakened by a sharp feeling. It was like… pain, but not quite. It didn’t feel like I was hurt, it was unpleasant, but in a different way. I recognized it instantly.

Someone has damaged one of my magic buildings.

I quickly recalled the things I created recently. Houses? They were okay. The town square? Fine. The fence?

...Crap.

I quickly woke Alice up. “Wake up, someone is breaking into the village.”

“...what? Who?”

“Humans, probably. Judging from the way my fence is broken, they’re regular people with house tools. Wake Dad up.

I opened the window.

“Wait! You can’t just fight these humans alone!”

I smiled evilly. “Stop me.” And I jumped through the window.

Wings helped me get through the village quickly. I connected to all of my creations – mostly the houses – and made use of a handy trick I learned in the Underground while experimenting with magic. I made them resonate with my voice. “Warning. The village is under attack. The Royal Guard is called to the southern end of the village. All citizens have to evacuate into the Underground. I’m sorry, this is the only option sure to keep everyone safe.”

Monsters started to wake up and panic – I didn’t care. I got to the place where the break occurred.

The attackers – around two hundred of them – have already gotten near the living area. The keyword thankfully being near. I stopped on a nearby roof and used my magic to sprout a thin wall between them and the houses. Suddenly a sharp jolt of pain soared through my body. I knew that feeling too well – I felt it every time I overused my magic. But my usual limit wasn’t that small, I always could create ten more walls like this one before I got tired.

The rioters started screaming insults at me. I didn’t care about them – no one seemed to have a ranged weapon. All they could do from where they were standing was scream. I focused on running away. I was powerless without my magic, but the Royal Guard had pretty good chances of winning. Speak of the devil, Undyne arrived at the place, grabbed me, and tossed me in the Underground entrance’s direction.

Well, that was one way to help with the evacuation.

. . . . .

Undyne was FURIOUS. Sure, that guy did help by warning everyone, but he shouldn’t have run straight into action just to get immobilized after one attack. He wasn’t a part of the Royal Guard. But even if he were, Undyne would make sure to kick him right out if he ever became incapable of fighting.

The wall Cade created began to shake. Thankfully Undyne made sure to grab the magic amplification chip Alphys gave her. She booted it up and prepared a few spears.

The wall has been shattered by some guy’s bare fists. Pure rage could be seen in his eyes. How DARE they stop him from slaughtering their race. Perfectly understandable. She threw him one of her spears.

“What the-”

“Defend yourself, asshole.”

The spears started flying in his direction at the speed of sound. Undyne made sure only to scratch him. Killing a human would be bad PR for monsters. If he lived, no one was gonna blame her for injuring him.

The attackers started to turn back. They didn’t seem to be prepared for someone to actually fight back. The man she was trying to attack also tried to escape, but Undyne wouldn’t let him. A fence of spears grew from the ground, trapping him in place.

“Let me out, you fucking bastard!”

“Yeah, like I’m ever gonna do that!”

“You can’t even fight without magic!”

Undyne knew letting him out would be a strategically bad move, but she has been challenged. Fine. If he wanted it, he was gonna get it.

The spears disappeared and another set of them was created around both of them, like a fighting ring. The human was dumbfounded for a while, but then roared and rushed at Undyne. She easily dodged and kicked him in the leg. He tripped and fell to the ground.

In the meantime, the Snowdin guard has appeared. Undyne destroyed the ring.

“Glad to see you guys. Arrest this guy. Just watch out, he may fight back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who got the reference in the title? I didn't. I just know that one from memes. If someone knows where it's from, the comment section welcomes you!  
> Also, I removed the Major Character Death tag, because I realized I'm not planning on killing anyone.  
> Yet.


	43. Chapter 43: I'm Bored Of Naming Every Single Chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting early because I am the author and no one can tell me what to do.

I landed on the ground with a loud _thump_. Damn. Undyne must’ve gotten stronger since the first time she tried to lift me. Or was it just the chip making her stronger? I didn’t spare any more time on these thoughts due to the pain from my magic depletion and the sharp landing. I _had_ to find Walter, Alphys or Toriel. They were the only monsters I knew who had any way of healing me.

I groaned and got up. I couldn’t rely on the ability to resonate magic through the buildings.

...Or could I?

A few houses in the village were still uninhabited. I could retract some of them to fix my magic problem. I concentrated. Vegetoid’s house, the Lab, Asgore’s and Toriel’s house…

There was one building right for this. A flat located in the city’s center. Removing the top floor should be enough, only a few people lived there, and I was sure they wouldn’t mind once I explained why I did it and re-constructed the floor.

I started by removing the roof and… Wait, what? I haven’t even removed half of it, but my magic was already fully replenished. Something was really wrong. Was it because of Asriel’s soul’s disappearance?

That could actually be the case. Earlier, Frisk said that the Last Dream lacked the power to create a soul. It meant that it was weaker than one. The one inside me was probably spending all of its power to keep my hyper-packed-with-dust body alive and therefore didn’t expand my magic limit. Oh, well. Looks like I have to rely on the reserves my ‘humonster’ soul clan status gives me.

I got up and started slowly walking in The Barrier’s previous location – Asgore decided to name it the Barrierspot. How typical of him.

One of the monsters spotted me. It was a grey ghost. “Oh… hey… do you need help?”

“Yeah, kind of. Can you give me a… Uh…” The ghost had no hands.

“It’s okay… Here…” He gently picked me up with some kind of magic. It wasn’t like Sans’ magic, it was more gentle. It felt like I was flowing in a river. It also healed me in a weird way.

“Thanks! What’s your name?”

“It’s Napstablook… oh, sorry, you don’t have to call me that… if you think that’s a weird name...”

“No, no problem! That’s a really good name!” This ghost really needed some confidence. Cheering him up was the least I could do for him. “I’m Cade. Uh, aren’t you escaping?”

“No… humans don’t have magic… they can’t hurt me… oh, wait, they can hurt you… sorry, I’ll evacuate you...”

“You don’t have to. I doubt they can make it past Undyne, and she just arrived there.”

We waited in awkward silence for a few seconds. Noises of fighting could be heard in the background. I could also hear Undyne scream.

“So, what are your hobbies?” I asked out of the blue.

“I like music… spooky dubstep is my favorite… I also make my own songs sometimes…”

Spooky dubstep? Well, he was a ghost after all.

Before I could say anything, I spotted Undyne running toward us, yelling.

“...aaaaAAAARGH WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?! You could have DIED! From now on you are FORBIDDEN to rush into action like that unless you pass the Royal Guard test!”

“Yeah, I’m fine, thanks for asking.”

She punched me out of Napstablook’s magic stream. Oof. Two hard landings a day keep Undyne’s rage away.

“I’m WORRIED about you, punk. That’s why you’re under house arrest.”

“Hey! What?”

“You behave like a kid. You’re not leaving your home until you get my clearance. And you won’t get it unless I say you’re strong enough to survive.”

Completely absurd. I wasn’t a kid. Well, maybe 15-year-olds aren’t exactly adults, but still.

A few seconds passed.

“Okay, you’ve got the clearance. If you objected, I would have locked you down for a few months. But I see you’re strong enough to take the consequences of your actions. Just don’t do anything stupid.”

Wow. She must have learned some psychology from all of those animes.

“For real now, we’ve gotta take you to Alphys. Before you matched my power even though I had the chip on. How did that wimpy wall tire you out like that? They broke it in seconds! Something’s really wrong with you.”

“Yeah, you won’t believe what happened yesterday…”

I was interrupted by one of the Snowdin’s guards. “Captain! We’ve found another human walking around!”

“Bring’em here!”

The dog monster came with a shackled human. The latter was a tall, young guy with yellow eyes.

“What were you DOING here?” Undyne asked furiously.

“I’m a member of the Hawk soul clan,” he replied, “and we need to talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes.  
> The chapter here is made out of chapter.


	44. Chapter 44: A Strategy Meeting

I entered Asgore’s living room. I used my magic to cancel the evacuation message and call Asgore, Toriel, Sans, Papyrus, Alphys, Walter and Alice.

“Okay, so what exactly is going on?” Alice asked, entering. Everyone else has already gathered.

“This guy here...” I pointed at that guy there, “Umm, what’s your name?”

“Hunter.”

“Okay, Hunter here claims he’s a member of a soul clan and wants to talk.”

“Which one?” Dad asked.

“Justice” the prisoner answered.

“Hold on,” Undyne interrupted, “I still don’t get what a soul clan is.”

“Basically a bloodline of humans with magic. I’m in one, Alice is in one, and this guy apparently too. There are seven in total.”

“I have seen a member of this clan before the war,” Asgore said. “Their magic manifests as bullets shaped like feathers. They hurt the worse the more crimes someone has committed.” He looked down, and I could understand why. He did commit some crimes.

“Glad we got this out of the way,” Hunter smiled. “I have been cooperating with the Wolf Clan until you guys broke free. You see, their attitude towards you is really aggressive. They have passed the knowledge about monsters in tales, from generation to generation, but one thing remained unchanged: they want to destroy all of monsterkind. I’ve left them just now because I saw that you don’t really want to fight anyone. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I helped them.”

“Truly the just thing to do,” Walter chuckled.

“How do they want to attack?” Alice asked. “That group earlier couldn’t have been sent by a soul clan, it was too weak and unorganized.”

“I don’t know, but I think they have some sort of hidden weapon. From what I know, it looks like it belongs to someone else. A man who calls himself ‘the Knight’.”

“We met that guy. He was in the Underground. He...” My eyes widened. “Get everyone out of the Underground.”

“What?” Undyne asked.

“We have to get everyone OUT. He’s going to attack from there. We’ve met him in the castle behind the Barrier in Waterfall. Long story. The barrier’s down now, so he’ll be free to attack. I have to-”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Alice stopped me. “Last time we met him, he looked like he could easily manipulate a part of the Barrier. He teleported us out and blocked the path, right? Why couldn’t he attack us back then?”

That made sense. He must have planned something else than our destruction. Either that or he was waiting for something.

“We can’t figure it out at 3 AM,” Toriel interrupted. “The Knight or not, everyone has to sleep once in a while. If he wanted to attack, he would have already done it. We’ll discuss this later. Now off you go!”

Hunter agreed to spend the night in one of our apartments. Everyone went to their beds, although they knew it would be hard to fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> somebody once told me the world is gonna absolutely destroy my rhyming skills


	45. Chapter 45: Nothing Special Happens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the chapter. Short, I know. Nothing happens, actually. But it's only a setup for the next one. And the next one is gonna be good.

The next day started like nothing had happened during the night, except the fact that everyone woke up much later. Being awakened and then going to sleep can really mess up someone’s sleeping cycle, even if it’s a monster that needs to get a different amount of sleep than most humans. Today was going to be another normal day – playing N64 games on an emulator program Alphys sent everyone, eating monster food and chatting.

Until Walter suggested going to a mall.

“What? There are no malls in our district,” I replied.

“I’m talking about a human mall.”

“That’s a terrible idea! We don’t have any rights outside the fence.”

“But you do have magic, right? As far as I know, if someone attacked you you could easily block his attack with a wall, and even if you had to fight back, you could still retreat to our district and no police would have been able to arrest you. Technically the law doesn’t include monsters, so you can do whatever you want. Trust me, I’ve thought this over. If something bad were to happen, it would only remind the government to hurry up with giving us ‘human’ rights, because as long as we don’t have them, we don’t have to obey the law.”

That was actually really smart of him. But hey, this is Walter we’re talking about. He always thinks ten times before speaking.

“There’s also a theory I’d like to confirm. Alice’s current body was made with your magic, right?”

“Yes, why?”

“You have known her for a very long time before she turned into a monster, and magic is based on feelings. If you were thinking about reconstructing her body back then…?” He paused so that I could figure it out myself.

“...she might be able to transform back into a human if she tried!” I finished.

“I haven’t even thought about that,” Alice added. She has been listening to our conversation.

She started to shift. Her fur was replaced by skin, her ears became smaller and the tail disappeared.

“Wow, I haven’t felt like this since… forever!” She laughed.

“There you go,” Walter said. “Now you can go shopping.”

“Aren’t you going?” I asked.

“No, I would likely start spitting dust after trying to transform. The Barrier has dealt some permanent damage to me. I think I have about forty years left.”

“Until what?” Then I realized what he was talking about. “Oh…”

“I know that it’s little for a monster, but don’t worry. You would outlive me anyway.”

We waited in silence for a few minutes.

“Then we’re not transforming,” I decided. “Not taking you with us wouldn’t be fair. We’re going as monsters, and anyone who has a problem with that is going to have a bad time.”

He thought for a while. “Alright, if you want to. Before I stepped into the Underground, I hid some money in a safe near the Barrier, in case I’d need it after I left. That is what we’re going to pay with. Now, let’s get going!”


	46. Chapter 46: The Mall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A long (for my standards) chapter this week, guys. Each time I post something longer I start feeling bad as soon as I post something short after that, like I'm not doing my best. Oh well. I guess that's just my brain's internal desire of development.

The safe Walter left his money in was over a meter underground. There was a lot of money there – over ten thousand dollars in Polish currency.

“Where did you get all that money?” Alice asked.

“I did sneak onto the surface every now and then in order to exchange gold. Since the monster currency is pure gold coins, it was easy to get some good money very quickly. I know someone who can buy huge amounts of gold for huge amounts of money without asking a huge amount of questions.”

“You seem to know a lot of ‘someones’,” I pointed out.

“That’s a part of my life. When you’re part of a Soul Clan, you learn to make acquaintances with benefits.”

We decided that the official version of the money’s origins was exchanging our gold after we left. Trying to actually exchange it now would be problematic due to obvious reasons.

As we were leaving, Toriel approached us along with Frisk and Asriel.

“Good morning, Your Majesty,” Dad greeted.

She decided to ignore him. I couldn’t blame her – she knew what Walter did from Asgore. “Hello, Alice, Cade. I heard that you were going to a human mall. Could you please take my children with you?”

“No problem at all,” Alice replied, “but wouldn’t it be too dangerous?”

“They really want to go, and I think that if they’re with you, they should be safe enough.”

“About that…” I stopped. She didn’t know how my magic limits decreased recently, but… it should be okay, right? No one would attack us out of the blue. At least I thought so. “…No, nevermind. Of course, we’ll take them.”

. . . . .

Alice decided to enter the mall in her human form. A bunch of monsters walking around with a human child would raise suspicions of kidnapping. It was best to keep our bunch a human-monster group. She quickly backed to our house to get a shirt with no hole for a tail.

The mall was like you’d expect it to be – big, two-floored, with one major grocery store and multiple fashion shops, a gastronomic zone, and a recreation zone. This was Asriel’s first time to a building like this, so he was glancing to left and right with sparkling eyes, trying to comprehend all of the colorful logos, marks and brands.

“What’s that store? Do they sell nice cream here? Can we get some?”

“Maybe at the end,” Walter replied, “if everyone behaves well.”

“By the way, how’s Alphys’ research on human food going?”

“Mostly complete. The results suggest that we’re free to eat human food, as long as it’s not excessively spicy, hot, or stodgy. This means ice cream should be fine.”

We got many stares from other people, but we acted like everything was fine.

“Okay, where to go first…”

“Toriel has asked us to get some groceries, should we start with that?” Alice asked.

“No, based on the list she gave us there are going to be a lot of bags to carry. I think we should leave that for the end,” Walter shook his head.

“Is that a video game store?” Asriel gasped.

“Well, I suppose we could buy you two a new console if Walter has no objections. But your mother is going to set the limits.”

“Agreed,” my father said. “We have enough money, and from what I’ve heard, Nintendo 64 is quite an old system.”

We went – and some of us ran – into the store. The kids immediately started oohing and aahing at various games.

“Hey, don’t get ahead of us, we’re the ones with the money,” Alice joked. “If you leave us like that we won’t be able to buy you anything.”

We caught up to the children and looked in silence as they browsed various titles.

“May I help you?” A young woman approached us. She looked like an assistant.

“Yes, we’re looking for something the children could play with. They strongly prefer playing together than separately.”

The assistant raised an eyebrow. “How do they… Oh! You’re the kid that’s living with monsters! Must be cool, right?”

Frisk noticed her and smiled.

“Oh, and we’d like to avoid titles that include slaying monsters,” Alice added silently. “For obvious reasons.”

“Right… Let’s see… Do you have a console or computer of your own?”

“No.”

“Well then, there are two ways to play together. Either buying a console, which is going to be the cheaper version and playing on one system. This way is said to be more bonding, but offering fewer titles.”

“And the other option?”

“Buying two separate computers and playing through the Internet.”

“We don’t have access to the network yet,” I said.

“Oh, right. The console it is, then!”

We decided to get the new Nintendo console because the monsters were somewhat familiar with those. The games we chose included Smash Bros, Pokemon Sword, and Mario Odyssey.

When we were waiting in the line to the checkout, a nasty-looking man behind us elbowed me.

“What?” I asked.

“Move.”

“…No? Why would I?”

“You monsters really have no shame. Going to our mall, stealing our products and refusing to move aside when we want to go through?”

“Okay, I’ll move. Come on, Dad, Asriel.” I handed the games I was holding to Alice. “Can you get those for us, Alice? I gave you the money earlier.”

“Sure, no problem,” she smiled.

The man scoffed. I could tell from his eyes that he wanted to kill me.

“Where did you get money?” he asked. “You probably stole it like the beast you are.”

“We exchanged our gold coins. Any other questions?”

“You have no right to exchange anything.”

“You know what? True, we have no rights. But that also means we don’t have to obey your law. I could technically just steal the console and the games and fly away if the customer service wasn’t so nice.” I waved to the lady who helped us earlier, and she waved back.

The man just scoffed and backed off.

. . . . .

“What’s next?” Alice asked Walter after we left the store.

“It’s time for the groceries, I think. There isn’t much left to do, after all. Then we’ll get the ice cream.”

“Does somebody have a coin? I’d like to get a shopping cart.”

“No need for coins, when you have…” It cost me a bit of energy, but I managed to make a cart large enough for groceries. “…magic!”

“I think we should ask Sans to get the games at home. Shall you do the honors?” Walter asked.

“Of course.” The connection to Sans’ soul was still strong. His magic allowed me to ‘shortcut’ the games home.

As we were heading for the store, I spotted a strange person. Just like Walter back in the day, he was wearing a cloak, but this one was brown instead of purple. I couldn’t see his face clearly, but his eyes…

Were shining with bright orange light.

He made a quick move. He reached under his cloak and grabbed a few sharp objects. He threw them in our direction.

Time slowed down. I could see that the objects were, in fact, four iron daggers, each aimed at the heart of one member of our group. Except for Frisk.

Then they stopped.

The daggers literally stopped in mid-air.

All noises were silenced.

It wasn’t only the daggers that stopped – the people, even the water in the fountains – were standing perfectly still.

“One second has passed,” I heard from behind me. I turned around – surprised that I could move – and spotted Asriel, whose whole body was set on fire. I knew that Asgore could use fire magic, but I never saw him do it.

“Two seconds have passed,” he said and walked up to the daggers. He was behaving really creepily. And also his seconds were very long because I counted at least six of them pass.

“Three seconds have passed.” He raised his finger and touched one of the daggers. He turned it with one finger so that it was aiming at the ground. “Four seconds have passed.”

“Asriel? Are you okay?” came a tiny voice from Frisk. He apparently could move too.

The goat monster turned around just to reply “Five seconds have passed.”

He looked at the knives again and flicked each of the remaining ones down like the first one. “Six seconds have passed.”

Wait, one more thing needed to be done. I ran up to the man who threw the knives. I carefully took his hood off and took a photo of his face. Gotta remember guys with sharp knives and glowy eyes.

Asriel just turned to me and said: “Seven seconds have passed.”

“Well, I think we’re done here,” I said. He shook his head and pointed to where Frisk, Alice, and Walter were standing. “Eight seconds have passed.”

Right. I returned to the place I was standing in previously. Asriel did the same. “Nine seconds have passed. Time will flow again.”

A barrage of sounds bombarded my ears. People started moving. The knives fell to the floor. Asriel stopped burning and fainted.

“What happened?” Alice asked. She wasn’t the only one to think that – anyone in a thirty-meter range was wondering why four daggers appeared on the floor.  
“I’m onto you,” I told the man who tried to assassinate us, “so don’t think this is over.”

Then I used Sans’ magic to take everyone to Alphys’ lab. Asriel needed healing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...They didn't get ice cream after that. Oh well. Nice cream was better anyway.  
> And also I needed to make the second half of this chapter a huge JoJo reference. I just had. These are my basic rights as a human.


	47. Chapter 47: Yet Another Meeting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for all of the 'boring meetings', I promise to make it up.

“W-what happened?” I heard Alphys ask.

“Asriel’s hurt. I think he overused magic. We need to stabilize him.”

“Oh, r-right. Wait a minute.”

She led us into a room with eight hospital beds – a small replacement for her old underground lab. She told me to lay Asriel down and examined him quickly.

“I think h-he’s going to be alright. His organism will replace what he lost soon. F-for now, I’ll just connect him to a m-magic source.”

“We’ve gotta tell Toriel and Asgore.”

“What are you going to tell them?” Walter interrupted. “We didn’t even see Asriel use his magic.”

“I did. Trust me, I’ll explain.”

. . . . .

We went to Toriel and Asgore’s house.  
“Howdy! What can I do for you?” Asgore said.

“Asriel’s hurt. He’s going to be alright, don’t worry, but he overused magic.”

“Oh dear… What happened?” Toriel asked from behind the corner.

“I think… I think he stopped time.”

“Wait, what? Do you realize how stupid that sounds? That’s… Wait… That would actually make sense…” Walter replied.

“He used some sort of… Spell, I think, that stopped time. The only ones that could move were me, Frisk and Asriel. I think it was for about thirty seconds.”

“You can’t stop time for any amount of seconds. Seconds don’t flow.”

“I mean that everything around us froze and from our perspective it was half a minute.”

“Asriel once told me… that Chara had taught him a spell using a glyph she brought from the surface. But he wouldn’t tell me what it did,” Toriel said.

“Well, now you know. What’s important is that Asriel is going to be okay. Oh, and I’m sorry we didn’t have time to get your groceries. I know this is not our biggest problem, but still.”

“Right. I apologize, but I must get there immediately. I have to see him.” And with these words, Toriel left.

I looked at Frisk and whispered, “Come on kid, let’s connect that console of yours before your mom notices.”

. . . . .

Asriel was out of the lab after a few days. His magic had replenished completely without any negative effects. Alphys even said that he might get stronger from that experience.

Unfortunately, he didn’t know what the origins of that spell were. Chara destroyed the glyph as soon as Asriel saw it. She wouldn’t talk about where she found it.

Well, that would have to wait. We had a strategy meeting to attend to.

“For starters,” Asgore begun as me, Alice, Toriel, Alphys, Undyne, Sans, Walter and him gathered in his living room, “What exactly happened at the mall that forced Asriel to use the time-stopping spell?”

“Some hooded guy attacked us. He threw knives at everyone except Frisk. That also means he wasn’t some random passerby, because Alice was in her human form. Asriel stopped time and neutralized the daggers in mid-air while I took a photo of his face. Oh, I forgot to mention that I and Frisk were able to move during stopped time.”

“That is SO cool...” Undyne mumbled.

“I could see everything, but couldn’t move,” Walter said out of the blue.

“You could?”

“Yes. I saw clearly what all of you were doing, and the inability to turn my eyeballs didn’t matter, because I don’t have them.”

“Wait, really?” Upon closer examination of his face, I confirmed that nothing was in his sockets – just this weird pitch-black substance I’ve seen before a couple of times. I wonder how I didn’t notice that before.

“Yes, really. Now please, show us the picture.”

“Okay.”

I grabbed my phone and presented the photo to everyone. What they saw was a dark-haired man in his mid-forties. His eyes were glowing with orange light.

“That’s someone from the Wolf Clan, without a doubt.” Asgore said. “Every one of them has glowing eyes when they use their magic. I believe this one is a Lone Wolf.”

“How can you tell?”

“For starters, he appeared alone,” Walter begun. “If he had a close connection to his family, they wouldn’t let him go alone. He must have been in the mall by pure coincidence, as opposed to the reason of him being in this town. My theory is that he went here as soon as the Barrier has been broken, and went shopping for whatever reasons he had. Then, he spotted you and attacked. I don’t think he will inform his family about what happened, but the fact that he threw four knives indicates that he had some sort of intel. Presumably from a Helper constantly spying on us. And there’s ‘Gregory’ written on his collar. His name, I presume. His clothes must have been custom made, which suggests wealth. I don’t think we can deduce anything else at the moment.”

“W. D. Gaster, the deduction master. Oh, it even rhymes,” Alice noticed.

“Everything would. Science master, blaster master, disaster master…”

“I am indeed all of those three, now please stop with the flattery or I’ll start blushing.”

Alice laughed.

“Let’s move onto lighter matters,” Toriel proposed. “I heard that humans have an important event regarding children a week from now, is that correct?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “It’s spooktober, guys. There’s a tradition that encourages human children to go trick-or-treating. That means dressing up as monsters and visiting other people’s houses asking for candy, and if they don’t have any prepared, pulling harmless pranks on them. I think it would be a great opportunity to start integrating monsters and humans, given the irony of recent events.”

“I’m worried about the safety of children...”

“Don’t worry, miss Toriel,” Undyne begun, “As long as they move in groups, I have enough guards to assign one per group. They’ll be safe and sound.”

“That’s a relief.”

“J-just tell the guards to stay hidden, we don’t want to ruin anyone’s fun,” Alphys reminded. “T-the optional group size should be o-over four, assuming…”

“Oh, you math nerd!” Undyne grinned. “C’mere!”

She lifted Alphys and pulled her closer, and the lizard squealed and hid her face in her hands. Toriel smiled.

“I believe the children aren’t the only ones to have fun next week.”

“Yeah, Undyne will totally want to go too. Unfortunately, she’ll have to hide and spectate.”

“As long as the children are safe, I’m sure she won’t mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Yes! You heard it right! Next week we're having actual monsters on Halloween! I know the actual event is later than that, I just can't wait to write that chapter.


	48. Chapter 48: Trick Or Treat!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yesssssss halloween

“There now, you look like a true vampire!”

Toriel smiled as she finished putting Frisk into her costume. The human child and Asriel were both dressed as vampires and were heading out to meet MK and Snowy.

“And Asriel, if you get in trouble, please don’t use that spell again.”

“Why not? It’s really powerful!”

“Trust me with this. Help will arrive sooner than you can blink.”

“But…”

Asriel stopped as Frisk pulled his sleeve.

“Okay.”  
“Thank you, my child. Please stay safe.”

The children waved and left.

“You’re going to load if anything goes wrong, right?” Asriel asked when no one could hear him.

Frisk nodded. She hasn’t used that ability since the monsters broke free, but she planned on doing it if anything went wrong. She used it when the breach happened, but she happened to have saved just before sleeping and she wouldn’t have had time to tell anyone.

“Are you going to tell them about your magic? Not that, I mean… about your gender.”

Frisk nodded again, but more reluctantly. Her gender wasn’t either male or female. She would sometimes physically change into a boy or a girl. She hasn’t told anyone except Asriel. Not even her parents, since she was an orphan. That’s also one of the reasons why she didn’t talk much. Her voice shifted too, and she couldn’t control it.

“Yo! Are you guys coming?”

MK was waiting near the city gate – created by me just for this event – along with Snowy.

“Just a minute,” Asriel said, watching Frisk bath their hand in glowing yellow light – a save point. It had always been there, and Frisk came up with a theory that save points attract people and monsters without anyone realizing it. That was one of the reasons why I made the gate near one, and why one was in the heart of the village.

The thought of scaring people and getting candy filled them with determination.

File saved.

. . . . .

“hey.”

I turned around to see Sans looking at me.

“the kid is probably going to load a lot.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“loading? you know, the weird stuff frisk does with time and no one except me and you notices?”

“No idea. The only weird ‘time stuff’ I’ve seen so far was Asriel stopping time.”

“oh. yeah. him too. wait a minute, frisk only loaded when you were in the barrier, and during the attack. you sure you didn’t have a deja vu back then?”

Come to think of it, I did remember something like that. It was part of the reason I got up and realized what was happening so quickly. And nothing was normal in the Barrier, right?

“You may be right. So Frisk is going to load if we get in trouble, right?”

“that’s right, and i want you to help me prevent that. we’re getting info from frisky business, scaring a few kids away from some creepy alleyway, and getting home for dinner. got it?”

“Yep.”

“Hey, Sans!” we heard Undyne shout. “Come here, you’re protecting Asriel’s group, and they’re heading out!”

“k, undyne. see ya later.”

And he shortcutted away.

. . . . .

“Hey, guys! Wanna join us?”

Asriel, Frisk, Snowy, and MK turned around as they were beckoned by another group of children. The one who called them realized that they weren’t all human, and looked away.

“Nevermind!”

“Yooo, is that Caled?” MK asked.

One of the humans was indeed Caled – dressed as a skeleton, but still recognizable.

“Hey, guys! Fancy meeting you here!” The boy replied.

“Who’s this?” Asriel asked.

“One of the fallen humans, we met him in Snowdin,” Snowy replied.

“Are you really sticking with those monsters?” The yet-unnamed boy asked mockingly. “Oh, I forgot, you’re one of _them_ now.”

“Hey man, those guys are cool.”

“Cool indeed!” Snowy smiled and then blushed. “I forgot that snow puns aren’t relevant since we’re not in Snowdin…

“Hey man, it’s snow problem.” Both Caled and the monster laughed.

“I GUESS they can come with us, but if they try something funny, I’m leaving!”

“Yeah, that’s Bruce. Bruce, this is Snowy, MK, Frisk and… I haven’t met you before, right?”

“I’m Asriel.”

“Okay, nice to meet you too.”

“COME ON ALREADY!” The already annoyed kid shouted.

“And that’s Bruce...” Caled added.

. . . . .

“Trick or treat!”

The lady who opened smiled and grabbed her bag with sweets, then looked at the monster children and screamed. She ran back into her house, leaving the bag.

“Okay, you guys ARE useful. But don’t expect me to thank you or anything.” Bruce crouched and grabbed the bag.

“What are you doing?” Caled asked.

“Taking it.”

“We have to leave some for others!” Asriel protested.

“No we don’t!”

“Dude, you’re not stealing all of it! At least you’ve gotta share it with us.”

Bruce looked at the rest of the group. “Fine, I guess.”

He split the candy into six more or less equal parts, then took one that looked the biggest.

The rest of the children didn’t do anything.

“You guys gonna take it or what?”

“We’re leaving it here. It’s ours and we can decide what we do with it.”

Bruce just went to the next house.

. . . . .

“Have we met before?”

Jake spotted Sans, whose left eye was slightly glowing with the color blue.

“you don’t know me. i do know you from alphys’ cameras that showed you shooting monsters to left and right.”

“Oh. That. I got over it.”

“i hope so. so why are you here?”

“I’m watching over Caled and his friend. You’re doing the same, right?”

“yup.”

Awkward silence.

“anyway i’m sans. frisk’s dunkle.”

“I’m Jake. But you may already know that.”

“oh, and if someone tries to harm the children… any of them…” Sans’ eyes went black, as if indicating that the ‘someone’ might be Jake, “... **get back**.”

“Y-yeah fine. I guess you can handle that with magic and stuff.”

“Um, excuse me?”

Sans and Jake looked behind and saw a fluffy boy looking at them.

“I’m looking for… Oh, hello, Sans!”

“...you’re here? how?”

“Oh! And who are you?”

“I’m Jake,” the human replied.

“Nice to meet you then! I’m Ralsei.” The boy turned to Sans. “The Knight has disappeared. Something bad is coming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> plot incoming  
> oh i also haven't planned what the plot is gonna look like but believe me it's gonna be gooood  
> Edit: this weekend's update is going to arrive a bit later, sorry for that.


	49. Chapter 49: Finally Some Plot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not posting last week. I don't even have an excuse. Just take your weekly dose of something actually happening.

“What do you mean he disappeared?” I asked Sans through the soul link. “How can you tell he just disappeared when we don’t even know where he is?”

“ralsei says that all of his troops staying in their dark world retracted.”

“Ralsei’s with you?”

“yeah, he said that when the barrier fell they gained access to the underground. building a bridge took them a while though. right now waves of darkners are flooding the village.”

“Wait a minute.” I glanced over to a group of kids I’ve been watching. I noticed Undyne approaching them, and giving me a subtle nod. “Can you get me there?”

“sure. i met jake, he’s gonna watch over the kids. i’ll be there too.”

I got shortcutted to the village. I spotted a few familiar faces – Kris and Ralsei were talking to Asgore, and Susie was having some ‘security problems’ with Undyne. Apparently carrying a giant ax around wasn’t the best thing to avoid the Royal Guards’ attention.

“Hey, Asgore, and you guys.”

“Hello, Ralsei and Kris here have been explaining what happened. I assume that since the Barrier is broken, the Dark World’s inhabitants have free access to the surface, is that correct?”

“Yeah, but there’s one more thing. There are two universes, and we’ve managed to establish a connection between them.”

And I explained how, back in the day, we traveled through the Barrier to the Dark World and its strange connection to both ‘timelines’. Confusion was inevitable.

“So after traveling through that… fountain… one can get to another world?” Asgore asked, making sure he understood correctly.

“Yes. For now, let’s pretend that all Darkners are just regular monsters. The human government is already confused enough,” I said.

“That would be the best action to take, I agree.”

. . . . .

“Hey, are those kids monsters?” someone asked. The kids turned around to see three people approaching the group.

“Yeah, why?” MK asked.

One of the men grabbed him by the collar and lifted him with one hand. “I heard you fuckers pay with real gold coins. Hand them to me and no one will get hurt. Oh, WAIT,” he added after looking at MK’s shoulders. “You can’t.”

“I could, but I won’t!” The kid shouted. An orange arm with four fingers materialized on his side and punched the man in the face. He let go of MK immediately, who ran a few steps back.

“I thought you didn’t have arms! What’s wrong with you?” Bruce asked.

“Yeah, that’s my magic. It’s hard to maintain, so I don’t use it very often.”

“...Arm magic?”

MK nodded.

The guy who got punched stumbled and got caught by one of his friends. “Damn! Are you okay?” the latter asked. The former broke free, shouting “I’LL KILL YOU!”

He rushed in MK’s direction and took a right swing, but he fell to the ground as his punch didn’t hit its target. “What...” He looked at MK, who turned out to be standing right behind him. “How did you do that?”

MK just looked around, with a similar level of confusion. He was just standing in that place… Then he felt something grab him, and…

“Load, Frisk” Asriel said. His entire body was flaming with magic. Stopping time to move MK out of the way was already exhausting, and he didn’t know how to stop the flames. His magic reserves wouldn’t last long.

Frisk focused on going back to where they saved, and…

*LOAD FAILED

“...what?” they asked silently.

*LOAD FAILED

“I can’t load,” Frisk told Asriel quietly. “It doesn’t work.”

Asriel looked around. All three attackers were preparing to attack, when…

A white wall rose from the ground between both groups.

“What?” One of the humans asked in confusion. “What the hell now?”

“They can use magic, did you forget?” His friend reminded him. “Just break it, it was made by a kid, it’s got to be flimsy and weak.”

The man punched a hole in the wall. Then another one. Soon enough, the entire object fell to pieces.

“Wasn’t there less of them before?” The other guy commented.

Indeed – luckily, Sans has sent me back here a few seconds before anything bad happened. “You’re not getting anywhere with bare fists,” I commented.

“Indeed,” the third man, who has been silent until now said, “but what if I had a few knives?”

I recognized the man - ‘Gregory’, the magic user who attacked us in the mall. He punched both of his companions into unconsciousness.

“Why did you do that?” I asked.

“They were just some extras I found. It was a coincidence that we arrived here at the same time. They would only draw me back.”

“Well, now you have someone to draw you back even more.”

I created another wall in front of me. He cut it open with a knife – it took him no more than three seconds. “Don’t you have anything better?”

“Nah, I’ll stick with this,” I said, dematerializing the wall and creating another one. He kicked it open. I made another one. He punched it down. Then I created another wall.

“HOW MANY OF THOSE HAVE YOU GOT?!” He shouted from behind.

“I JUST RETRACT THEM AND REGAIN 100% OF THE MAGIC, SO I THINK I HAVE A LOT,” I shouted back. I used to regain less, but the Last Dream I absorbed seems to have changed that.

“WHATEVER, I CAN STILL KILL YOU!” A few knives flew above the wall, changing their trajectory in mid-air so that they were now aiming at me. I managed to dodge them all, but man was that close. More knives, more dodging. This took a while. Finally, they stopped coming.

“Tired already?” I asked. Gregory… started laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“You were so busy avoiding the knives from above… that you didn’t even look around!”

I turned around to see a circle of knives surrounding me from all sides – north, west, south, east, there were over a hundred of them, all hovering one meter above the ground.

“But I won’t use them all to kill you, no,” he smiled, “the first part goes to your beloved children!”

Half of the knives suddenly rushed forward – all avoided the human children, Gregory, and me. Every one of them hit their targets. I could see the children falling down and…

They all disappeared.

“What?” Gregory asked in confusion.

“Remember the first wall I created?” I asked. “That’s when I evacuated everyone. What you have just attacked were dummies made with my magic!” The magic I just obtained from retracting them allowed me to wrap Gregory in thick chains. “If you even think about-” All of the remaining knives shot in my direction. I created a wall around myself, and this one was a lot stronger than the previous one thanks to a nice little detail about my magic – the less I created, the stronger it was. This wall was half a millimeter thick because magic inside it was super compressed. All of the knives bounced off the wall.

“As I was saying, if you even THINK about using your magic, those chains are going to get covered in thorns. And believe me, I will make them long.”

“FINE. Tell me what you want.”

“Just some information,” I replied, grabbing him and using Sans’ magic to warp us both back into the village.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From now on, all chapters will have a plot twist. At least the plot-related ones. I'm too addicted to JoJo to not insert at least one per chapter.


	50. Chapter 50: Interrogation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not keeping up the promise about posting every weekend. 'Update' rhymes with 'late'. But I've finally decided on the course of action this fic is going to take!

“Undyne! I’d like some help here!” I shouted to the guard after warping to our village.

“What’s up, punk?”

“This is the guy who attacked us at the mall. Just don’t harm him, please,” I replied, pointing at Gregory.

Undyne’s eyes (eye) narrowed, and she trapped the man in a cage of spears. “One suspicious move and I’ll impale you with a thousand spears,” she warned.

“I’ve lost, haven’t I?” Gregory asked through gritted teeth.

“Yep,” I confirmed. “And you’re going to answer some questions.”

We started attracting stares, so I created a thin dome around us.

“For now, we’ll ask the King to come here. Then you’ll talk.”

“What if I won’t? You’ll kill me? Torture me? Please note that your reputation as a species is already unstable, and one bold move could provoke a war,” he said, his voice dripping with fake courtesy.

“We’ll find a way.”

. . . . .

Asgore, Walter and Alphys got here after a few minutes. The last one – a little later than the others, and she was carrying a strange device that resembled… a radio with way too many antennas.

“Is he the man?” Asgore asked.

“Yeah, but he won’t talk.”

“I-I have, um, something for that...” Alice spoke up, nervously. “W-watch.” She pressed her device’s lid (all of the antennas were on the side). It emitted a dark mist that filled the room.

The mist altered everyone’s vision. We could see only black and white, with one exception. Everyone’s souls were visible.

“T-that won’t make him talk, but we’ll know when he’s lying,” Alphys explained.

“First of all, why did you attack us and what do you want?” Walter asked.

Gregory smiled. “Simple. We want to destroy you as a species.”

“...You said that like it wasn’t anything bad.”

“Do you know why? Our leader remembers the war. The most important memories of each member of our clan are passed down onto the next generation’s Alpha. He has a reason. So do we.”

“Wait. So if he told you to jump off a cliff...”

“I would do it. Not because he’s the leader, and if he wants my death, I deserve it, but because I know him well enough to understand that there’s a trampoline placed just below where I would jump. Or something else that would save me. He is a master of planning.”

“Well then, where can we meet him?”

“Do you really think I’ll tell you that?”

Alphys’ device could only detect whether he was lying or not, so I didn’t see any way for this conversation to escalate.

“I have an idea. Wait here,” I said.

I left the dome. Everyone exchanged confused looks. I returned shortly after.

“Okay. Here’s the deal. I give you a cookie, you tell me where your hideout is.”

He looked up at me. “Seriously? Do you really think I’ll fall for that?”

“Yeah, seriously. Look.” I grabbed two cookies from the bag I just brought. “One for me, one for you. You can choose which one you take. I’ll eat the other one.”

“And you expect me to believe they’re not filled with some neurotoxin?” He asked,

“We didn’t have time to prepare any, and I’m gonna eat one to prove there is none.”

Gregory reluctantly chose the left cookie, and I ate the other one. “So what’s it gonna be?”

“Sorry, I’ll pass.”

“Okay.”

I loosened his chains and retracted the dome.

“Are you letting me go?” he asked with disbelief.

“You aren’t going to say anything, so yes.”

He slowly walked away, still not convinced about my sincerity. No one stopped him.

When he was fifty feet away from the camp, he shouted “I’ll give you one tip. Try to research runes a little further. Just the ones you know,” and he was off.

“What was the deal with the cookies?” Asgore asked.

“A simple psychology trick. I didn’t want to hurt him, so I made him like us at least a little bit. Based on what he said about monsters, he doesn’t know anything about us. The cookie might make him think about his boss, and maybe, who knows, return and tell us some more? Best case scenario.”

“T-that’s smart, b-but I wonder what he meant when talking about the r-runes… G-glyphs were just rediscovered, weren’t they?” Alphys asked.

“Not necessarily,” Walter replied. “There is one that was laughing us in the face for ages, and we were too stupid to notice it. The Delta Rune.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason, Grammarly thought this chapter is very disapproving, and a little worried and sad. Idk, that's their job and writing's mine.


	51. Chapter 51: The Rune

“I’m just worried, that’s all,” my mom said through the phone. “I want to… I would like to check up on you.”

We were talking about how she would like to move into our village and wasn’t able to due to various reasons. Monsters would gladly take her in, but she wouldn’t be safe from attacks – and we were sure that those would continue.

“You can visit us even today, no problem. I bet dad would be happy,” I replied.

“Wait... Who?”

Oops.

“Well… Remember how he disappeared when I was six? He… kinda wasn’t dead and was just hiding in the Underground this whole time?”

…

Mom hung up.

. . . . .

She arrived at noon, in casual clothes and with an angry look on her face.

“Where is he?” She asked.

I pointed to Dad, who was standing right next to me. He looked very stressed.

Mom approached him, slowly, until she was less than a foot away from him, and then…

She punched him in the face.

“That’s for hiding for all these years and not telling me anything.”

“I’m sorry,” he replied awkwardly.

“Why did you leave?”

“I… had to fix a mistake,” he replied.

“That’s not how to fix mistakes, that’s how to create them.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you what mistake I made.”

He hasn’t told me about any mistakes he created before he crossed the barrier. Unless he was just talking about me.

“We’ll talk about that later. I came to see the village. You can tag along, but don’t try anything funny.”

He didn’t look like he was about to do anything at all.

. . . . .

“So that’s your house?” She asked.

“Yep. Alice and I live here now. Along with dad, but that arrangement was made so that we could keep an eye on him. You’re not the only one he made furious.”

“Am I?”

“He angered the king.”

“Sounds like him alright.”

Walter, who was listening from a safe distance, started to wonder whether he should leave or not.

I showed her the town square, the Barrierspot, and the Lab.

“What kind of research do monsters do? I heard your previous host was one of the scientists,” she said.

“Mostly runes. They also find ways to combine magic with technology. I mean, technology is about thirty years in the past, but they managed to invent pocket dimensions.” To demonstrate, I pulled out my phone – the monster one – and extracted some coins from its storage.

“Can I go in?” Mom asked curiously.

“Of course. I’m sure Alphys won’t mind.”

I opened the door. “Alphys! My mom has visited. Can I show her around?”

“U-um… Yes! I mean, h-hello, Ms. Gaster, or, I-I mean, Ms...”

“Just Jade is fine,” my mom replied. “Could I look at your research?”

“Y-yes! It’s this way.”

She led us into the ‘research room’, which was smaller than the previous lab, but still good for doing sciencey stuff.

“W-we were researching runes. I-I tried infusing the Delta Rune with magic, but… It didn’t do anything.”

“What?” I asked. “Why would Gregory tell us about it if it didn’t do anything?”

“Who’s Gregory?” Mom asked.

We quickly explained the attack and what came of it.

“So this rune should do something when looked at, but doesn’t?”

“Exactly.”

“Can I see it?” Mom asked.

“Sure, but I doubt it’ll do anything since you can’t use magic,” I said.

Alphys showed her the paper, Mom raised her hand and…

Green flames danced between her fingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah yes  
> enslaved cliffhanger  
> Also, AAAAAARGH I LOST MY 30H HOLLOW KNIGHT SAVE FILE i'm angry


	52. Chapter 52: I'm Back After Two Or More Months, Don't Expect Me To Come Up With A Good Chapter Name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't protecc  
> i don't attacc  
> but at the very least  
> i'm bacc

 

Long story short: Asgore, with a heavy heart, ordered all Delta Runes to be hidden from human view – news were spread among monsters in order to explain the disappearance of the royal family’s symbol, but everything was kept secret from everyone else – except the government, which was informed immediately.

One thing kept bothering me – though we discovered one thing, we knew that Gregory wasn’t working alone. Someone kept hiding in the darkness and we knew about their presence.

That person revealed themselves after two weeks. We were doing just fine, until Alice spotted something weird.

A human was living in the village and no one acted strange about it. A middle-aged woman sometimes appeared in a random place, doing regular things – buying groceries, sitting on a bench, even talking with nearby monsters. No one ever noticed that she was human – except Alice.

“Who are you?” the fox woman asked her outright when she met her next to the village’s border. “How do you cloak yourself like that?”

The woman smiled. “I’m just keeping tabs on this village. I have orders to report any suspicious activities.”

“Then why does no one except me see your true nature?

“Your soul trait is integrity, am I right?”, the woman asked.

“Why?”

“Integrity means staying true to oneself and others. This allows you to see the naked truth, piercing the comfortable lies my magic weaves around me.”

 _That makes sense,_ Alice thought. However, there was no guarantee that the woman would be harmless to the village. _She explains herself, or she leaves._

“You want to know who sent me?” the woman asked, as if reading Alice’s mind. “That’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s your common enemy.”

“The Wolf Clan.”

“Correct.”

“In that case…” Alice readied her magic. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave, ma’am.”

A strong gust of wind blew towards the woman, who… stepped aside.

“That won’t be so simple,” she mocked. “For you see, my abilities don’t just extend to disguising myself. I can see through others as well.”

A second and third attack came, but they were just as harmless. The woman stepped aside half a second before the air even began to move.

“I can see anything relevant to the near future or past. There is no enemy capable of beating this power.”

“Really? How about this?” Alice concentrated, and the air spun around her foe in a large circle. “Twenty-meter radius Emerald Splash!”

A small tornado was brought to life. Okay, it wasn’t that small. Just… small for a tornado.

It looked like the enemy was defenseless, but the woman… disappeared.

“need a little help?”

Alice almost jumped. She turned around to see Sans standing close.

“What are you doing here?”

“you know, the usual. checking why there’s a tornado here like the one you made in my room.”

“The enemy is from the Wolf Clan. She can deceive others and see the near future and the past.”

“hm. i think i know why your attack didn’t work. the more significant something is, the easier it is to see. and your attack was pretty big. She had a lot of time to create a clone of herself, and it was easier to fool you because you were concentrated on attacking.”

“How do you know those things?”

“i’m a good judge. her magic works only if you believe it. if she created five copies of herself, they would almost scream ‘i am fake’, because your mind would know that’s impossible.”

“So… we have no way to find her unless she commits some sort of mistake?”

“looks like it.”

“Emilia?” Sans and Alice turned as they heard a new voice coming from a nearby forest. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, I think so… Thank you, Gregory.” the woman’s voice replied.

“Looks like she got help,” Alice said, turning in that direction, but Sans stopped her.

“that woman just dug her own grave.”

“What?”

He raised his left hand, and Emilia – looks like that was her name – appeared out of nowhere, floating half a meter over the ground with her soul turned blue.

“How… did you know?” She asked.

“simple. you guys should really stop getting those custom-made clothes, maria.”

Sure enough, the woman’s collar said “Maria”, and clearly not “Emilia”.

“you overdid it. wanted to get two birds with one rock, fooling us with a fake name and trying to assasinate us covered with an illusion. plans with more elements have a much higher chance of failing.”

“Just tell me what you want,” Maria said.

“tell me where your boss is.”

“He’s in Tokyo, Japan.”

“ok, off you go.” His eyes turned black. **“don’t come back.”**

The woman fell back to the ground and ran away.

“How did you know she wasn’t lying?” Alice asked Sans.

“told you. i’m a good judge,” he replied. “next stop, japan. wherever the hell that is.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally I'm ending this
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Oh who am I kidding, I'll probably come up with a part two after I finish this fic. I'm already making plans actually. But you can't know them yeeeet.....


	53. Chapter 53: Monsterdust Crusaders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> iS tHaT a JoJo ReFeReNcE?

“So we’re going to Japan now?” I asked to make sure I heard that correctly. Alice had called everyone to Asgore’s living room, including Frisk and Asriel, claiming that she found the enemies’ main base.

“if we want to defeat those wolf guys, yeah. wait a minute, none of them actually turned into a wolf at any point. care to explain, mister doctor?” Sans asked, not even turning to Walter. He was still holding a grudge, and I couldn’t blame him. Asking him anything was already much.

“I have two theories,” the scientist started, “the first one being that they need a direct order from their alpha, and the second one – that it takes so much power to perform a full transformation that it’s just less efficient than using magic.”

“well, that doesn’t matter. what matters more is: who stays and who goes?” Sans carefully eyed everyone else in the room. “from what i understand, that ‘tokyo’ place is a lot farther away than the mall you guys were at. it’s gonna be a long journey, and the enemies are probably gonna send some guys to stop us.”

“Alphys isn’t going,” Undyne declared instantly.

“B-but Undyne, the anime-”

“Period,” she said. “You’ve never fought before. I can’t risk you getting hurt. I can buy you some souvenirs, but that’s all.”

Alphys didn’t look pleased, but she didn’t answer.

“One question: how is any monster going to go? I mean, the airport security will never let us through,” I noticed.

“I-I actually started working on something that might help,” Alphys said. “It’s, um, a device that u-uses a monster’s m-magic energy to b-b-bent the photons...”

“Long story short, it makes you look like a human,” Undyne explained.

“cool,” was all Sans said.

“I-it’s still a prototype though, so it would be w-wiser to stay here for a few weeks until I c-can make a stable version...”

“Can’t we just GO there and BEAT THEM UP?” Undyne groaned. “Sans has the shortcut thingy, can’t he use it to get us there?”

“won’t do, i can only use it to go to places i’ve been to. so the best way I can use it is getting back here each time our supplies run out. that still forces us to travel.”

“Planes won’t work anyway, you need a lot of documents to get past the security, and monsters don’t have civil rights or passports outside the village,” Alice noticed. “So we’ll have to take a car and illegally bypass the borders. Does anyone know how to do that?”

Walter, who had been glaring at my phone for quite some time now, spoke up. “That may be hard, but we could just get off the car, walk a few kilometers away and cross the borders where no one would be looking. Sans would memorize the place on the other side, and then he would shortcut to the car and bring it back with him. Assuming he has enough power to do so.”

“peace of cake, though i hate agreeing with your ideas.”

“I have also worked out an optimal route. We would go through Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, China and briefly stop in South Korea. Assuming we have a car and a ship. Do we? Because that plan won’t work without either.”

“I m-might try to b-build those...” Alphys begun. Everyone looked at her. “W-what?” she asked.

“Do you even know how those work?” Asgore asked. “Because I don’t.”

“W-well, t-though we didn’t have any back in the U-Undergrond, I know w-what a car is s-supposed to do, and with m-monster tech one should be e-easy to make, with the right materials… T-the same goes for a boat.”

“alph is talented, let’s just trust her. what do you need?”

“W-well, a team of around three people should be enough, along w-with the access to high grade materials f-from my lab and the C-Core’s stashes.”

“Does the Core have any material storage? I asked, surprised.

“Y-yes, it’s w-where we keep most of the s-simple mechanical parts we create,” she explained.

“You have the permission to use any means necessary,” Asgore said. “As for the team...”

“I WILL GO,” Papyrus said. “I LOVE CREATING PUZZLES, AND THIS SOUNDS SIMILAR TO MAKING ONE. AS LONG AS I CAN BUILD, I’M IN!”

“that makes two of us,” Sans added, surprising everyone. “what? the more jobs, the more breaks.”

“I don’t think it works that way, but I’ll help too,” I said. “I’m done living off dad’s money, I wanna do something useful for once.”

“That settles it,” Asgore finished. “Now we should discuss who exactly will go to Japan. My suggestion: Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, Alice, Cade and Walter, because from what I understand, he’s the only one who can drive. Do you have any objections?”

No one spoke up.

“It’s settled then,” he said. “I feel bad for sending you on a dangerous quest, but I cannot afford leaving the village due to official business with the human government. All I can wish for you is the best of luck. The meeting is adjourned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point I'm literally ripping off JoJo season three. I mean, six guys traveling to another end of the world to defeat an evil genius. HMM, WHERE HAVE I SEEN THAT BEFORE?  
> also my laptop battery is dying bc i forgot to bring the charger to my grandpa's but i managed to finish this chapter on time (the weekly update schedule is back)  
> btw it's my grandpa's 75th birthday and we used a clever surprise party ruse: first, we casually let in our cousin who lives like 60 meters away and he stayed in my grandpa's house  
> then my aunt and uncle arrived and started singing happy birthday at the front door  
> and as soon as grandpa and grandma got distracted my cousin let like 10 other people (including me) through the back door with fries and cakes and other party supplies and we quickly put it all on the table  
> and then when happy birthday finished grandpa turned back to see 10 more people singing happy birthday with cake and everything  
> idk why i'm telling you guys this but i'm so proud of my family  
> Also update: i won't be posting until around 25/02 because I won't have access to the internet or my PC. Sorry!


	54. Chapter 54: wow plot

“...aaand done!”, said Alphys, finishing and saving the last piece of software. “N-now we just have to upload it onto the boat and all s-systems should be w-working!”

We had just finished building the yacht. The car was already finished too. Both would have taken much longer if we couldn’t use magic, but Alphys insisted on hurrying. Every one of us knew that another attack could strike at any moment.

“I’ve never lifted something so heavy!”, Undyne exclaimed. “Is this thing really gonna float?”

The boat, around 13 meters (42.5 feet) long, was hanging in the air on belts attached to the ceiling of Alphys’ workshop. The car was there too, a black jeep made with durability in mind. We didn’t know who or what could attack us.

“I-it should float just f-fine, as long as you don’t o-overweight it, which should be p-pretty hard.”

“I won’t even USE IT! I’m gonna swim ALL THE WAY TO JAPAN!”

“You forgot the plan again,” Alice said. “We’ll drive most of the way, and we’ll only use a boat to get from China to Japan.”

“From Russia to Japan, actually,” added Walter, who just walked in. “Change of plans. There’s currently a virus outbreak in China, and we have no idea how it’s going to work on monsters.”

“So what’s the new route?” I asked.

“Ukraine, Russia, then Japan. As little border crossing as we can manage. We’ll spend most of the way in Russia, so I advise taking winter clothes.”

“Winter clothes?” Undyne repeated.

“The ones you usually wear in Snowdin.”

Undyne groaned. “I HATE EXTREME TEMPERATURES!”

“But you love helping your friends in need,” Walter replied.

“I GUESS,” she said.

“D-don’t worry, Undyne, the jeep will be h-heated,” Alphys calmed her down.

“Sooo when are we going?” I asked.

“As s-soon as possible, I just have a f-few things to give you.” She walked up to one of her tables. “F-first, your disguises.” She pulled out four devices that resembled wristwatches. She handed one to Undyne, Sans, Walter and Papyrus each. “U-use the switch on the side to turn it on.”

Every monster in the room except Alphys began to change. Each slowly took on a different, human, form. Undyne was now a red-headed human woman in her twenties while Sans turned into a short fourteen-year-old boy. Papyrus’ new form resembled his brother’s, but the skeleton was taller and older, looking like his father. Walter was… just as I remembered him. While he couldn’t transform on his own, I’m sure that if he could, he would look exactly like what the device was now projecting.

“I LIKE THIS NEW FORM,” Papyrus said. “NOW I CAN PRETEND I’M SANS’ FATHER AND TELL HIM TO FINALLY CLEAN UP HIS ROOM!”

“aw cmon bro, you wouldn’t do that to me,” the short now not-so-skeleton replied.”

“TIDY YOUR MESS OR NO KETCHUP FOR YOU! NYEH HEH HEH!”

“This is AWESOME!” Undyne shouted. “I look like a human!”

“You should have no problem with the devices unless you use this,” Alphys said, pulling out another contraption. It looked like a handheld lantern, one resembling those used by graveyard workers in horror movies.

“It d-disrupts all magic signals in a twenty meter (66 feet) radius for a moment. It will destroy your camouflage and none of you will be able to use magic for around five seconds, but your enemies w-won’t either.”

“so we should use it as a last resort,” Sans deducted. “how many charges does it have?”

“One, a-and it breaks after using, so I’ve made six of them. Y-you’ll be taking only one though, since using one would also t-trigger the rest. Sans can shortcut back here for another one in case you need it.”

“another reason for me to save my strength. ok, you guys go fight while I do nothing.”

“SANS THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS AND YOU KNOW IT!”

“that’s exaaaactly how it works bro.”

“NO IT ISN’T!”

“yes it is.”

“NO IT ISN’T!”

“no it isn’t.”

“YES IT IS- SANS!”

“what?”

“ARGH!”

When everyone stopped laughing, Alphys pulled out another device.

“T-this will help you in Tokyo,” she said. “It’s a magic-tracking compass.”

The device didn’t look like a compass, but like a circular smartphone.

“It s-scans the area around itself, revealing nearby s-sources of m-magic. It s-scans only a fifty m-meter (160 f-feet) area, but the b-boat and the car are equipped with a m-much stronger one.”

“What if their mansion or whatever they live in aren’t a source of magic?” I asked.

“E-everyone who can use m-magic is also d-detected,” said Alphys, powering the device up. We could see seven white dots in the center of a dark green screen, and many more around the edges. Some were connected by thin white lines.

“T-the device can’t spot the difference b-between a magic u-user and a magic p-projectile, so you’ll need to s-stay careful. The lines u-usually connect a user and his projectile.”

“cool,” Sans replied. “so can we get going now?”

“Yes, please take the car out of the lab,” Walter said. “I’ll be the one driving, since I’m the only one who can.”

And after packing some necessary supplies, we were off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been thinking and I've come to the conclusion that it's time to end this fic. No sequels. Maybe someday, but the next fic I'll be writing is going to be a Fablehaven/Homestuck crossover, because I think those fandoms kinda fit together. And it's going to be planned better than this one. No changing the ending while writing!


End file.
